In this episode, we bring you a detailed update on the current status and challenges facing the Anaerobic Digestion sector today. With industry experts Jing Liu and Mario Rosato, we discuss the need for a better understanding of the AD process to improve operational efficiency, policy changes that support renewable energy and environmental safety, and for closed-loop systems that favour local abundant feedstocks over the use of energy crops.

And in part two of our episode, we bring you a briefing from Ecomondo 2015, sharing insights from the key figures we spoke to at the event last month. You can find video briefings and material from this event on our Events Page.

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State of Biogas Today – Operational Efficiency and the Volume-Driven Approach

THE ORGANIC STREAM: So today we’re going to be talking about the state of the anaerobic digestion sector today, and what we need to do in order for the sector to expand and improve, and you both have many great things to say on this matter. But when we were discussing the content of the show together, the key point you both brought up was that the A.D. industry is not focusing enough on optimising operational efficiency in biogas plants. So for our audience, we should start with a simple introductory question. So Jing, can you tell us what operational efficiency is, and what does it look like for A.D. or biogas plants?

JING LIU: Well first of all we need to understand the difference between the efficiency and the performance of the operation. Also, I think the efficiency and performance should match the goal of the process – the goal of the operation needs to be clarified. In fact, the goal of the operation might vary. For instance, in the traditional operation for waste and wastewater handling, the goal is to match the discharge standard. However, for renewable energy production, the goal is to maximise the energy production and to insure the profitability by improving the utilisation of the process unit, and increasing the mass and the energy throughput. And there might be conflicts between those two operational goals. So finding a balance is the key. We need to know that it’s seldom the case that plants are designed for optimum performance.

TOS: Right, so they’re not always designed with this in mind. And Mario, can you share your thoughts on this as well?

MARIO ROSATO: Yes, I have more field experience in this sense, and I can say that an anaerobic digestion plant can be considered optimal if it has been designed to be optimal by producing the maximum amount of methane per cubic meter of digester, and producing the maximum amount of methane per tonne of feedstock fed to the digester. These are usually opposite criterions, because one excludes the other. And at the same time, the plant must be stable enough in its operation – and I mean stable in the sense of maintaining a constant gas production with varying quality and quantity of feedstock, which is quite a tough goal to reach. So this is why a plant, to be optimal, must reach a compromise between these opposite constraints in the management.

TOS: Okay so it’s all about compromising, which can be quite tricky. So Mario, if there isn’t a focus on operational efficiency, what is the focus? Can you maybe give us a brief overview of the AD sector today in terms of the trends?

MR: Yes. In the European Union and the United States, the trend is to build plants as big as possible. The reason for that is a kind of economic scale. Usually the plant builders say that plants must be very big in order to be stable in operation, which is not completely true. A plant is not more stable or efficient because of its size; the plant is efficient because of its management. The other extreme is India or China, where the policies have lead people to build very small plants, usually at household level. In this case, the plants are poorly managed but nevertheless they are efficient for the scope they have, which is just to produce a bit of energy for household use.

It must be noted that regardless of the different national policies towards big or small-scale plants, there is very little political drive to make the plants efficient. It’s a pity, because a plant, which is not efficient in its operation, regardless of the size, produces a digestate, which is usually used as fertiliser, but if the plant is not efficient enough that digestate is not completely digested. This means it still has a residual methane potential and this residual methane potential means that greenhouse gasses will be emitted to the atmosphere. So the main environmental benefit of anaerobic digestion is being lost because of inefficient management. And on the other side, if you see the management of the plant from the economical point of view, an inefficient process is not extracting all the methane possible from that feedstock, so the result is that the economic performance of an inefficient biogas plant is also poor.

TOS: Okay so inefficient management is impacting the profitability of biogas plants – whether they are big or small, as well as the environment and there is very little political drive to change this at the moment. Jing would you agree here?

JL: Yes I fully agree, but maybe I should add some additional comments. In my point of view, a big plant does not necessarily have high efficiency, although big biogas plants should have a much higher interest in achieving high efficiency because the economic and performance impact is so big. But unfortunately this is not always the case. The businesses are focused on the plant construction and really little has been done to ensure a better understanding of the process, the process dynamic – basically, how to improve the operation.

So as a consequence, in many cases we treat the biogas digestor or plant as a “black box” machine. People receive unknown substrates and just dump them in, without knowing what they’re putting into the plant – and how can you expect to get an efficient and stable performance without knowing what you’re dealing with? In fact, the A.D. plant should be considered as, for example, a bacterial farm, or living organism – just like an animal farm that requires care and follow up. So we need to really care for the healthy level and growth of the bacteria, make sure they’re in the best condition to be able to convert biomass to bioenergy. So this is the situation. Even though the European biogas industry is considered more advanced in general, I think this also applies to European counties as well. So the situation really applies to the whole biogas sector, which urgently needs to improve.

Energy Crops & Other Current Challenges For Anaerobic Digestion Industry

TOS: So right now we’re operating without much knowledge of the process itself – and there are a lot of areas that the sector needs to improve on. Mario, you’re quite aware of the issue on the ground, can you share an example of the environmental and economic consequences of our current situation?

MR: Yes, I know the Italian biogas market well, and in the Italian reality, the industry does not earn money on making efficient plants or on the engineering of the plants, what actually gives money to the plant builders is the size. That is – the amount of concrete casted, or the amount of steel employed for building the plant. So this means that such gigantism can only be reached for plants which are in the range of a hundred kilowatts to one thousand kilowatts. And these plants are mainly designed for running on corn silage. Corn silage is not necessarily the most sustainable feedstock for making biogas, but it is very stable in its production, and so since said plants are owned by banks and capital groups, this substrate somehow ensures the owner of the plant that he will be able to recover the investment in a certain amount of time and have a certain profitability.

But if we analyse some statistics that have been conducted by an agricultural association in Italy, in this moment ninety percent of the energy produced in such biogas plants comes from the corn silage, and not from the manure. And on the other side, only a small amount of the manure (let’s say about ten percent) is actually being digested. The ninety percent remaining manure is just being thrown to the field without being digested, so the ecological potential of anaerobic digestion is being lost, which is actually polluting the manure before sending it to the field as a fertiliser.

TOS: Right, so instead of using the available manure, they’re growing energy crops, which goes against the notion of sustainable distributed energy and closed loop systems.

MR: Sure. Another aspect is that growing corn requires a lot of fossil fuel input for pumping water, etc. So producing electricity with biogas means that about sixty percent of the total potential energy of the biogas itself is being lost as heat. This energy lost as heat must be added to the energy put to the cultivation of the corn. That means that altogether, the amount of Co2 emissions to the atmosphere is higher compared to other renewable energies.

Finally, these plants that are owned by banks and capital groups were built with the purpose of benefitting state subsidies. So it’s actually the Italian citizen who is paying for the subsidies for renewable energies, and this means an increase in the cost of the electric bill; and a kind of unfair social treatment of the resources, because that excess money being paid by the citizen is going to banks and capital groups which sometimes are foreign and they then take the money out of the country. So the volume driven approach has brought, at least in Italy, an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, a decrease in biodiversity, and to the rise of citizen committees who are protesting against biogas plants – even those plants that are run correctly.

Designing the Anaerobic Digestion Plants of the Future

TOS: So this approach is really doing damage to the whole industry, the environment and the local citizens in Italy. So clearly something has to change, and we’ll be focusing on this change now. Jing – can you tell me your thoughts on what we should be doing – where should our focus be, what are the challenges we face, and how should we approach planning and designing A.D. plants in the future?

JL: Well this is rather a big question! Although I mentioned that the A.D. industry has focused on plant construction and not on improving the operation, I want to emphasis that this doesn’t mean construction isn’t important. It is super important to make sure that design, construction and operation are tightly connected to each other. I consider the following challenges or aspects that are important to address:

The right technical knowledge and facility that’s well able to increase the efficiency of the plant and consequently lead to a more profitable operation. The right feedstock is super important. Feedstock is the fuel for the A.D. plant. Without knowing the feedstock or how to properly select and manage feedstock, it’s hardly possible to enough good quality fuel to power the A.D. plant. I mean, this is the number one priority in many cases.

The second aspect is having the right plant design and construction. In reality, this is not always the case. Imagine that the steering wheel is locked when you drive a car – how can you turn your car? If there’s an object in front of you, you will hit the object. That’s sometimes the situation in the A.D. plant. So the future biogas plant and design should meet the new operational demand.

The third challenge, or aspect, that I’d like to bring up is that we really need to have the right instrument, process optimations, and supervision control. Nowadays, many A.D. plants lack basic instrumentation needed to understand the status of the operation. In the control world we say, “If you don’t understand the process, you are never able to control the process”. With too little process information it’s impossible to steer the process towards optimum conditions. So there is an urgent need and we need to get more information and analyse more.

The last aspect that I’m thinking about is having sufficient process knowledge and competence of the operator. Again, even if you get all the infrastructure – the right fuel, the right plant, the right instrument – somebody still has to manage, or drive, it. And this requires knowledge and competence of the operator. Only in this case can the industry move forward.

Quite often I use two examples. In one I refer to the A.D. plant as a bacterial farm, and in the other I refer to it as a car. A car is like the biogas plant itself, and you need a good car. The fuel is like the feedstock, and you really need the right feedstock to feed into the plant. And the driver…even if you have the best car and the best fuel, the car doesn’t move without a skilled driver. It’s the same for the biogas plant. You need to have experienced, knowledgeable operator and process engineer to steer the operations.

TOS: So with the right technology, knowledge and training, AD plants can greatly improve their operation. I’d like to discuss an example of how exactly this can work on the ground, and the benefits it can have. Now, Mario, you were involved in rescuing an AD plant in Italy – where the owner had invested millions in trying to figure out what was going wrong with their plant. The plant was rated as 1 mega watt, but only reached 60% in its of its capacity even though they were feeding it with more than 50 tons/day of corn and triticale silage. So Mario you were brought in to help figure out what the problem was, and – tell us what you did to find the answer?

MR: So most of the time, the plant is being fed with fifty tonnes per day of corn silage, which is a lot of money if you consider the fact that corn silage is a valuable feedstock. And the problem was easily solved with just eighteen thousand euros. This amount was used to install a small laboratory in the facility. I trained the workers of the plant – who are not engineers or biologists, they are just manual workers. And this plant, I must say, was under-dimensioned, so I focused the strategy on producing the maximum amount of methane given the size of the plant. So I trained the workers to check the potential of the corn silage with the laboratory. We did some experiments with different mixtures of silage, cow dung, chicken dung, and some minerals that tend to activate the biological activity of the bacteria.

So after a couple of months of tests with the instruments, we identified where the problem was. It was a lack in minerals, which was caused by using corn and triticale as feedstock. By adding these minerals – which are just mineral fertilisers that can be bought in any agricultural shop – the owner of the plant was able to bring the electrical production from a hundred and ten kilowatts to nine hundred and ninety-nine kilowatts, which is the legal limit allowed for that category of plant in Italy. So since then it’s been more than one year and the plant has been running stably. And I noticed a secondary situation as well, that the people working in that plant were highly motivated. You can imagine that going around with a dumper or bulldozer, loading silage from the trench and loading that in the digester is not a very interesting or amusing job – it’s quite a dead-end job. These people are now motivated because they’re not manual workers anymore, they are laboratorists. They are in charge of a very sophisticated instrument. Now any time they do something, they know why they are doing it, which is quite important because they are ready to assume risk and responsibility. So that is a side-effect that was quite positive for the operation of the plant and demonstrates that professionalisation of the operators is of utmost important to bring the plant to an optimum working condition.

TOS: So it’s really a shift in perspective – that the AD plant is a biological organism, or farm, and the workers are laboratorists/biologists rather than just operators. So that’s a great example of how this can work…

So we’ve covered a lot of the challenges and what needs to be addressed for the sector to be successful. But let’s talk about the bigger picture. For example – when we talk about increasing efficiency, it’s hard to justify increasing the quality and quantity of the output if there is no support or market for them. So Jing, I’ll put this to you: what key steps do we need to take for the sector to move forward in terms of policy and political support?

JL: If you look at nowadays, biogas has been generating quote an interest in the last decade, in particular we see the transition from using A.D. technology for only waste handling towards combined waste handling and renewable energy production. Even though right now the price of the energy is low, in the long we all know that the basing our economy on fossil fuels is not sustainable – not only because of the cost, which will increase as there’s less and less fossil fuel and will create the greenhouse gas effect – but it will also have a negative impact on national security. Fossil fuels are not always equally distributed, so there are national security issues as well. So that’s also the reason why we’re coming out with renewable energy, and so on. But just in recent years the renewable energy is not as developed as it should be because of the return of investment – maybe it takes too long, and so on.

In my point of view, moving from fossil fuel to renewable is a decision of the politicians, because we are in the transition based on the energy sources of one of very few big players towards renewable – which should be operated and managed by many ´, many local players. Locally produced, locally utilised, and spreading out the risk and so on. And this is actually a political decision – it’s not only marketing, it is a decision. And that’s one aspect.

In my point of view, the market competition is also a bit unfair. Indeed, renewable energy is still in the relatively early stage and the market maturity and business model maturity is not as well established as it should be, compared to fossil fuel. And people say that there is too much support or too many subsidies for renewable energy, but in fact actually, the fossil fuel, I think, is getting much more support from the government or from the big players.

So my message is: we know the current energy system is not sustainable. We need to move from the fossil fuel economy to renewable – there’s no doubt about that. It’s for our future generations. And that’s actually a decision for the government, and government need to provide infrastructure and policy support to facilitate, grow and mature the business and help renewable companies move in that direction. It is also important to make sure there will be many, many local players involved in renewable energy production – it’s not one or a few big players. And that’s very important because that’s a great way to create jobs, which is another big benefit. So I think, once again, that this is a political decision and without the right political support, this industry will find it hard to move forward.

MR: In my personal opinion, the policies should incentivise the use of anaerobic digestion mainly for waste management. In that case the subsidies should go to those who demonstrate the lower greenhouse gas emissions. The biggest value of anaerobic digestion is the ecological value, apart of producing energy. It’s a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, and to produce a fertiliser that means saving fossil fuel energy for the production of chemical fertilisers. So these repercussions have an enormous value from the political point of view. Compared to other energies, anaerobic digestion is probably the best technology that allows a complete circular economy.

On the other side, the education is also very important. In order to drive a truck, you need to have a special license and undergo a lot of exams, which is absolutely logical because if you don’t know how to drive a truck, you can cause a lot of accidents. How can you explain, then, that nobody has ever thought about imposing the need of having a license for managing a biogas plant? An average Italian biogas plant has the power of ten trucks, and the damage it can cause to the environment if not correctly managed is enormous – it’s really a big environmental threat. So education of the operators of the plants is of utmost importance in my opinion. And this is an aspect that the policy makers have not considered until now.

The other aspect is that a biogas plant, if correctly and rationally managed and run with adequate instruments that can measure the methane potential of the feedstock, can be run on any feedstock – that means many residual feedstocks. And this is the most sustainable way to obtain energy, rather than cultivating energy crops. So this is another aspect that in many countries in the European Union is missing. Many policies are still pushing the cultivation of energy crops instead of the production of energy with waste through anaerobic digestion.

JL: I was thinking about adding one thing. I fully agree that the education and knowledge transfer is critical on the professional level, but I think also it’s very important to increase the public awareness – not just for the people but also politicians. There has been an increasing scare, you can say, about A.D. People say, “Oh, A.D. and biogas process is too complex”. It is a complex process, but it can be well managed. It is a naturally, existing biochemical process, and what we need is just to intensify it and make it more efficient. And with the right education and increased public awareness, I think we can utilise this gift from nature and get the most out of it.

Seldom can you find technology that can handle all kinds of biodegradable waste and stabilise it (which we need to do anyhow because waste is always there), and at the same time generate renewable energy. There’s no other technology that I can think of that’s comparable. So what we need is education and knowledge transfer to make sure that we see the benefit, we know how to operate it, and we create a good policy to support the development. Then, with this all in place, the right technology and good technology will naturally move to the sectors and be utilised, and consequently we will have much more profitable, economic, feasible and efficient process – and we can gain the benefits from the A.D. process.

Interview End.

TOS: That was Jing Liu and Mario Rosato sharing their insights and experiences on the state of the AD sector today – and giving us some very interesting points to think about.

From the discussion, we learned that first of all, we are not prioritising efficiency in plant operation today and this is having a negative impact both for the plant and for the environment. We need to build plants with efficiency in mind, invest in the right technology and in education and knowledge transfer systems so that plants can be run stably and efficiently, and feedstock can be managed properly. Education and understanding seemed to be key for both our guests. As Jing described – if the A.D. plant is a car, without a skilled driver in the front seat, the car will go nowhere.

In terms of impacts on the environment – policy played a huge role in our discussion today as well. We heard from both Jing and Mario that policy which favours large-scale plants and the use of energy crops – as opposed to using locally abundant feedstocks and closed-loop systems – has lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions, a reduction of biodiversity and even a bad public image in the case of Italy, for example. A political decision needs to be made to support renewable energy and more small and local players, in order to build a truly sustainable AD sector, and plants should be rewarded for low greenhouse gas emissions.

So, we have a lot of work to do, it seems, to get where we want to be. Let’s make it happen!

Briefing from Event: Ecomondo November 2015, Rimini Italy

TOS: The Organic Stream team were at Ecomondo last month to take part and report on the event. For those who don’t know, Ecomondo is the largest showcase in the Euro-Mediterranean area for advanced and sustainable technology for processing and recycling all kinds of waste. The event takes place in Rimni, Italy and was four days of conferences with over a thousand international speakers, and an expo with 1,200 companies taking part.

This year the focus was on the green economy and how Italy is currently focusing on boosting the green economy in the country. The key message seemed to be that building a green and circular economy is possible today, and that they will play a central role in all industry sectors. Of course, there are challenges to face, however the companies and enterprises attending the expo were eager to find and demonstrate solutions – showing that there is an appetite for change.

This year saw the introduction of new areas to focus in the circular economy context areas – particularly food, biorefineries, and integrated water cycle management.

The generation of waste in the food system was a popular topic – as was the conference “Towards a zero-waste food chain: enabling technologies for the sustainability of the food industry and waste management in a perspective of circular economy”. Many different topics were discussed: the importance of separate collection schemes for organic materials, charges for pay as you throw systems, improving process efficiency in the food-chain, and strategies to reduce raw material losses. During this conference, we caught up with a few key figures to discuss the main points of interest at the event, and get more of a sense of the Italian situation.

We caught Marco Ricci – Chairman of the Working Group on Biological Treatment of Waste at the International Solid Waste Association, and former guest of our talk show – and he filled us in on the importance of biowaste recycling for Italy, and the challenges they’re currently facing.

MARCO RICCI: Italy source separates roughly fourty-two percent of all municipal solid waste, and biowaste is the key element to reach this result. One of the challenges is to expand the separate collection scheme of biowaste to the southern region where there is a lack of composting and anaerobic digesition infrastructure and where the separate collection schemes are realised spot-wise and not on a general area. The other point is that we had a recent report by the Italian environmental agency, which shows that intensive recycling schemes for municipal solid waste, including biowaste and especially food waste, are highly cost competitive to traditional solutions, which just rely on low recycling rates and high rates of landfilling and disposal.

TOS: Exciting news from the report that helps to support separate collection, which many municipalities in Italy have been having great success with as well.

Now, how to manage and the resources in rural areas was another key theme, and something that we sometimes tend to neglect when we discuss sustainability. Here is Fabio Fava, coordinator of the scientific committee for Ecomondo, sharing his thoughts on the matter:

FABIO FAVA: There are for sure new areas on which, in my view, we should work more in the future. Over sixty percent of the lands that we have in Europe are rural areas in which the environment is different from more populated ones. Often we are not exploiting the potential of this area in an efficient manner. So we need strategies and research and innovation tailored for promoting small industrial activities in this area – industrial means agricultural companies also – that are exploiting in the proper way the biodiversity that are specific for those areas.

TOS: There was much to cover over the course of the event, but particularly interesting was our chat with Andrea Miorandi – Ex-Mayor of Rovereto City, who implemented a separate collection scheme there. Mr. Miorandi was keen to stress the importance of citizen engagement in implementing organics recycling schemes, and shared some inspiring words that really summed-up the feeling at Ecomondo – that we’re ready to change.

ANDREA MIORANDI: The biggest challenge is to make citizens be participants in a good project. Citizen awareness and participation are the biggest challenges for these projects. Citizens must become protagonists even before the local administration or local authority. And we started a communication program that is both precise and locally-based. Well-informed citizens are enabled to participate in separate collection recycling. Citizens also need to be rewarded and local authorities need to thank citizens once expected results are reached.

Citizens must understand that their power in sorting waste end up a good result in recycling for a better future and as an investment for the future of their children. I do suggest that other mayors not fear to introduce revolution in the scheme and demand for changing its habits regarding waste collection. Citizens are ready. New generations fully understand how important it is to preserve the environment.

TOS: So that’s it for our round-up of the Ecomondo 2015 highlights, and for our episode today. I hope you enjoyed the show! For a longer briefing from Economdo, head over to our Events page where you will find resources, pictures and video briefings from the key figures we spoke to.

In part one of our Best Practices episode, we took a look at strategies for building strong partnerships and for a successful roll-out. In this final episode, we’re picking up where we left off. We explore San Francisco’s best practices in gaining trust with their outreach strategies; go in-depth with Seattle’s excellent education program; demonstrate the hands-on tracking system in Los Angeles; and discuss key policy measures that can impact a program’s success.

Streamsort is a data collection tool designed for quick, easy and accurate material characterisation studies and analysis in the waste management sector. The use of data today is still based on archaic methods of collection and analysis. Streamsort brings data collection technology to the next level, by removing the cost of data entry, reducing the risk for mistakes, and making compelling and analysing data much easier. Request a free demo on www.streamsort.com.

This event will bring together leading practitioners, cutting-edge researchers, and Global South representatives of local farming and cooperatives of waste pickers to look into the climate solutions around organic waste, particularly exploring the intersection between zero waste and agroecology. In cities around the world, practice is showing that tackling organic waste is key; while being part of the problem, its proper management in composting can turn it into a real solution for soil depletion, emission reduction from landfills and use of chemical fertilizers.

Join the USCC at the world’s largest composting conference and exhibition for the organics management industry. Hear the latest from industry leaders about solving challenges in collecting organics, manufacturing and using compost, and producing renewable energy from organics. Visit their composting tradeshow to see the latest in equipment and tools for effective programs. of particular interest to listeners of this program will be the Session on Measuring Diversion Improvements from Enhanced Tenant Engagement at Multi-Family Dwellings, presented by Lily Kelly of Global Green.

CHAPTER 5: DOOR-TO-DOOR OUTREACH STRATEGIES AND LOBBY EVENTS

THE ORGANIC STREAM: We left off episode three discussing Milan’s outreach campaign as part of their roll-out strategy. One of the key ingredients of their campaign was meeting tenants face-to-face in the apartment buildings, or at community meetings. This is the cornerstone of any outreach campaign.

I want to look at this in a little more detail, because engaging tenants is not always as simple as just heading over to the building and knocking on the door. It’s about gaining trust.

In episode two, we discussed in detail the importance of understanding the demographics you’re working with – reaching people where they are – either online or offline, at community gatherings, social media spaces, television, on the street at local festivals, and so on. Also making sure to have native speakers of the different languages on staff is crucial. This can go a long way to getting people to engage and to trust you. But there is more to it than that. Program coordinators have a few extra tricks up their sleeves to get people in apartment buildings interested, engaged, and willing to attend meetings.

Remember Alexa Kielty, member of the residential zero waste team at the San Francisco Department of Environment?

Well, Alexa told me a lot about their outreach work, and I was really impressed. We covered San Francisco in great detail in episode one and two, and as we know their zero waste strategy is one of the most impressive zero waste initiatives. In terms of organics recycling in multi story buildings – all residential buildings with less than six units separate their organics, and eighty percent of large-scale residential buildings do the same. Right now, San Francisco is focusing on the remaining twenty percent to close the gap, and because of this they have started to really hone-in their outreach strategy.

Alexa told me that in San Francisco, staff work directly with building managers to create individualised outreach program for the building – again, this means working with different demographics, customising the outreach materials, and so on. They also go door-to-door to deliver kitchen caddies and outreach materials year in, year out. Because of this, they have some great experience in knowing what to do to gain people’s trust and make it work…

ALEXA KEITLY: After we set up the programs, we have a whole outreach team called Environment Now, which is a green careers program – so, somewhat of a job training program. We hire from the community so we get a lot of native Spanish speakers, native Chinese speakers; we have a native Russian speaker and a native Filipino speaker on staff. And those folks will do what we call a Green Apartments, which is essentially door-to-door outreach within apartment buildings, at about five to seven pm in the evening, so hopefully we’re getting people when they’re coming back from work. And we work with the property manager so the tenants know ahead of time that we’ll be there on the certain days; we find out what languages are needed; we send outreach materials to property managers to post within the building ahead of time and in the elevator, so it’s not a surprise visit.

What’s great is if the property manager can come with us when we do outreach, or the resident manager, which is even better because they typically know more tenants. If that person can actually conduct the door-to-door outreach with us that’s really helpful because more people are willing to open their doors if there’s somebody they know.

TOS: This is great information here. First off, it seems the most important thing is to make the outreach personal. Alexa says they hire people from within the community they’re reaching out to – people who understand the community and are native speakers of the language of that community. It’s easier to open your door to people familiar to you.

Another thing they do is work with the building manager to give people notice that they’ll be coming, of course.

And finally, and most importantly, the trick to getting people to open their doors is to have a building or resident manager come with them. When we spoke to Lily Kelly of Global Green in her office in San Francisco, she said a similar thing…

LILLY KELLY: Having a tenant or a property manager come with us when we were doing the door-to-door outreach initially, especially if it’s a tenant who knows other people in the building, I think we got a lot more people answering their doors because it was their neighbour who’s knocking and saying, “Hey I want to introduce you to this person who’s doing this composting project, we’re going to have this at our building and it’s going to be really great”. I think that really changed people’s perspectives on it right at the outset of, “Oh, this is something my neighbours are interested in.

TOS: Gaining trust is a big part of getting people involved and interested in the program. So if tenants can see there’s someone from their building that’s interested, they might be more inclined to listen.

Now, in a big city, with a lot of buildings it’s not always easy to manage or finance such initiatives – which is why it’s a good idea to find recycling champions in the building – either a tenant or building manager and support them in promoting the program. Seattle has a great volunteer program for building managers that does exactly that, the Friends of Recycling and Composting program – and I’ll get into it later in the episode.

Another great tactic is to work with people that have some social significance – popular figures within the community, or local celebrities. This can really boost a program’s image and make it more attractive.

So that’s door-to-door outreach. Now let’s look at open events, or what are often called lobby events.

Setting up an event in the building, where people can come along to get information and perhaps pick up equipment is a common strategy. Many programs do this, and it can work quite well. But to get people to take time out of their day to attend, that requires some strategic thinking.

There are two main tricks you can use that have been shown to give results. And to learn about them, I wanted to take a trip back down memory lane, to one of the first interviews I ever did here on The Organic Stream.

(Clip of old episode plays).

TOS: This is our second episode, when I interviewed Rokiah Yaman and Clare Brass, director of the SEED Foundation, about her food scrap recycling research program that aimed to discover the barriers to organics recycling in urban environments. Clare was working with an inner-city estate, the Maiden Lane estates, in a disadvantaged area in London. And she told me about her difficulties in engaging the residents, who had much more immediate problems to deal with.

But using some clever techniques, she was able to overcome these challenges and get people participating in the program anyway.

CLARE BRASS: Recruitment is still the most difficult thing with these projects and you need to get under the skin of the people, your primary stakeholders. Now, often the thing that is driving you, so in our case the environmental challenge of food waste, is not the thing at all which is maybe driving a resident of a housing estate.

The thing that works quite well, and I think this is a really good trick, is that we piggybacked on an event that was happening at the estate. Just when we started the project there was a barbeque event coming up on the estate. We went along to that event, and we set up a stall with a poster. All we did really was go along with a whole stall full of little tomato plants, a bucket of food waste and a bucket of compost, and just talked to people and say “did you know that your food waste can look like this one day, and then it turns into this?” And most people were quite surprised, but it was an opportunity for us to start a conversation with them.

And I think the key thing here is, if you’re recruiting, it’s to go to where people are already going to be going, and just give them a little, a little tiny reward. Just to have a first point of contact. After that we managed to get about 15 to come to our first workshop. So that was a really good way in.

TOS: So there we have two of the best strategies for getting people to attend – using existing meetings or events at a building for your own outreach event, and make sure to have rewards. Other programs, such as Seattle, often advertise their educational presentation sessions in buildings as the place where people can collect their free containers. Another really great idea is to provide refreshments, because as program managers have told me – people tend to come if there’s food. So these strategies work really well.

TOS: One of the most important goals of an organics recycling program is to change behaviour and to get people to understand the impact their actions will have. Without this, there is no will to carry out the action. And this is where education comes in.

We touched on education before in episode two – focusing strongly on the importance of multi-language education materials.

Today, we go further and focus on the excellent education strategy that Marcia Rutan, Recycling Program Manager at Seattle Public Utilities, employs for their organics program.

TOS: Marcia Rutan has been working in education for a long time and she’s been greatly supported in her work thanks to Seattle’s progressive recycling laws. We learned quite a bit about Seattle’s organics program in the last episode. In 2011 it became mandatory to provide organic carts in multistory buildings, and implemented a full composting mandate for the whole city in January this year. Fines for too much food waste in garbage containers will start to be issued in January 2016.

From researching their program, I was inspired by the work they do to educating people. When I got Marcia on the phone, I wanted her to tell me all about it. And the first thing I asked was to start from the beginning: just what were the basic building blocks of their educational program?

MARCIA RUTAN: In terms of education, what we find across the board is that property managers especially appreciate posters that can be placed above the carts. Then we also have labels for the carts, and all of these have pictures as well as wording. And then we have our basic flyers. We use two basic flyers for this program. One is called the Where Does It Go flyer, and it has colour coding for all three waste streams: the recycling, which is blue, the compostables, which are green, and the garbage, which is a grey/black colour. The other flyer then is basically a food plus compostables guideline, which is all green, and it’s just to make it clearer to people what goes into the compost cart since it’s a new program. The flyer also provides a few “why is this important” points, as well as tips for storing and carrying out materials – so it just gives some more information. Those are the two basic flyers that we use with this program.

These are foundational for the property managers. They really rely on those flyers, the labels, the posters and the carts – and they’re all colour coded. And that partly came from…in about 2007 or 2008, we held focus groups with community based organisations. They were primarily constituted of folks who were immigrants or who have English as another language (I won’t say second language, because we know some of these folks have several languages under their belts). But they said they wanted the colour coding, and they didn’t want a “yes” “no” type of poster, which was confusing to them, but just “where do things go” in all categories. So that’s where these informational flyers came out of, and the colour coding.

TOS: So flyers, labels and posters are foundational elements for property managers in Seattle. Using focus groups to understand what residents would prefer gave them a better idea of how to design their materials. Colour coding is a crucial element – many cities agree that this is key. It’s easy to understand and transcends any language barriers as well. Another important element that also overcomes language barriers, and for those with reading difficulties, is pictures. And it was Alexa that said to me at one point during our interview that a lot of people, no matter what language they speak, tend not to read the posters – so pictures can really help.

One important thing here I want to bring up is the design of the materials. We often see too many design mistakes – so materials are either overcrowded with information and pictures, the signage is unclear or hard to follow, colours and contrast is also something to take into account as well, because if there is too much going on, or it’s just plain black and white, people won’t want to look at it. The more well-designed, clear and pleasant to look at the materials are, the better it will be.

So – educational tools such as flyers, hand-outs and stickers can be classed as passive education tools. Other very popular passive education tools are promotional tools like door hangers or magnets, and of course websites, apps, and social media.

Now, Marcia mentioned websites and social media as tools they like to use for education and outreach – and this was the same for all the cities we interviewed. In this day and age, when so many of us rely on smartphones and the internet as a primary source of information, having an online presence can make a big difference. The benefits are great. They allow program managers to interact directly with residents, share information quickly and easily, and to answer questions.

There are an increasing amount of platforms online to use to get the message out. The key here is to choose the right platform for your target group – for example, younger generations don’t tend to use Facebook as much as they use Snapchat or Instagram. The DSNY in New York have currently started an Instagram account, to try and reach the younger audience – they also have twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr accounts. So there are a growing number of platforms, and when designing your outreach strategy, it is your responsibility to adapt your strategy.

So these are great passive tools to use in an educational campaign. But what about the more hands-on approach we discussed before?

What interested me greatly in Seattle city as a case study and Marcia’s approach was her use of a more active educational approach. At many of the properties, Marcia conducts one-to-one on-site presentations that seem to go down very well with the residents.

MR: And we use that Where Does It Go flyer and we take props with us so people get a hands-on experience with putting things into the right colour bin. So I take two big bags of stuff, I distribute it to folks, teach them how to use the flyer, and then they come and put it into the bin they think it goes in and we discuss it. And this is a very popular game, people really love it. I’m a real believer in multiple educational intelligences: rather than just looking at a printed form, that people get their hands on things, and are kinaesthetic as well – they like to get up and move. So I think all of those are really important.

TOS: This idea of providing a mix of different educational methods to help reach people is an interesting one. And practicing the physical act of putting organics in the right bin can definitely help make the lesson to stick in a person’s mind.

With on-site presentations like these, it’s easy to see how they can help build a positive relationship between tenants and the program. It also gives educators a chance to get feedback directly from people, address questions and so on.

Seattle has 5 thousand multistory properties…and half of the population of the city lives in mulitstory buildings. That is a lot of people to reach out to. I asked Marcia if they had the budget to be able to reach everyone this way, and she said no. But what they do have is the volunteer program that I mentioned before…

MR: We run a train the trainer program called Friends of Recycling and Composting, where property managers or their designanted representatives come and take a two-hour training to get motivated and educated on where does stuff go and best practices at the property, as well as how to motivate residents. And people provide really high marks on this training program. They say they basically came just to get the free buckets (which we use as a hook to get them there!), but they left actually profoundly motivated to back and work with their residents, so it’s been really effective.

TOS: While it’s important to educate tenants, many reports show that the most effective education is focused on property managers. This is why the Friends of Recycling and Composting Program is such a great tool.

But educating building managers and owners is not without challenges.

MR: There is quite a bit of turnover of property managers, so we’ll just get them educated and inspired, and then they’ll move on to another property…which sometimes can work in our favour, because then they go on to help that other property get going. But sometimes we just basically lose them. And then there’s also resistance by some property managers: they hide the cart, they don’t want the residents to use it because they don’t want to deal with the ick factor, or they perceive a mess is going to happen. So we have missing carts.

We don’t have a good way to deal with the turnover – we just train, train, train and then like I said, some go on to other properties and help out those other properties to get going. But in terms of resistance – the drivers do report missing carts and we can just sort those and find out what are the larger properties (because those are the ones we go after). And then we target them. We give them a call, we go on site and find out what the barrier is for them to participate. Then we work with them, trouble shoot and provide education – anything we can to help feel more confident to get going. And often it’s that they’re very busy, so it can be a time issue. Another issue is fear, and we just try to deal with those fears. So a lot of those have gotten up and going.

TOS: One thing about education is that it’s always on-going. There is no real end to the work that needs to be done. Especially for a city like Seattle – with a program that’s very comprehensive and can still cause confusion over what goes where. We gained a lot of insight into what tools work best for educating both tenants and property managers. But the most inspiring thing to take away from the Seattle case study is their commitment to constantly refining their strategy year after year to help clear up this confusion.

MR: We continually listen to our customers. We do have a wonderful “look it up” tool on our website, which is one of the most used links on our website, where hundreds of items are listed and the best disposal practices are provided for, and it’s just so many different materials. So that’s been a big help. And we are also continually listening when people give us feedback about what isn’t working with the flyers, or what might need revision, so each year when we go to revise the flyer, we try to make it more clear and useful for people. You know, it’s not always going to meet everybody’s personal style of education, but we just do our best. We really try to listen to the customer, rather than thinking we’re the experts. We are experts, but we also know that it’s incredibly important to listen to the customer. We learned a lot through the community-based social marketing, we really do employ those principles as much as we can. And so listening to our customers is very key.

JS: So we have two compost bags in here, and…we do have one aluminium can.

TOS: Here, we’re following them as they conduct their monthly inspections of the trash rooms on every floor of the Old Bank District Building.

JS: We do monthly site visits here to check each floor, and we mark down the odour level, the cleanliness level, contamination level, participation, and what the bag count looks like in the dispenser system.

TOS: Tracking results. This is one of the most valuable tools to have in an organics recycling program – especially a pilot program. The types of information to track can be materials collected, contamination rate, challenges faced, key contacts, and the amount of outreach employed. Compiling a detailed history of all these factors will be invaluable in moving forward, and to give accurate information when presenting program results.

In LA, we were impressed by the strength of their tracking system and their hands-on approach.

JS: So what we’ve seen so far with this program is a high level of participation and a low contamination rate. To this date we’ve done three site visits, and on each of those three site visits we have one or two standard traditional poly bags in the compost bin, and that’s it.

TOS: As you can see, by tracking results in person, Jason and Jessica have a much clearer understanding of how successful their program is. By visiting the building in person, they have a chance to spot problem areas and recognise trends in the buildings.

Of course, one of the most important things to track is the contamination rate. Keeping an eye on how contaminated the stream is, and being able to react quickly to any issues is useful – especially for the processor who will be dealing with the materials on the back end.

JESSICA ALDRIDGE: From the hauler and the collector and processer’s standpoint, we have to make sure that the material we’re collecting is good material. And I would say one of the hardest programs to enact is a multi-family separation program, especially for organics. So through this process we want to keep a very watchful eye on that product to make sure it’s as clean as possible. Because if we’re processing this material and it’s making its way back to our sort line – so, when it comes back to materials recovery facility, we have a sort line that it goes up to and the material that’s not supposed to be in there is pulled off. Then it is shipped off to our compost facility in Victorville, it is screened once again, then it is composted and that compost is then screened once again.

So we want to make sure that we have as little an amount of contaminants as possible, or else we end up with a more strenuous process. And also, it gives us an idea of if we need to send out more education and outreach to the residents here, to the management or to the maintenance – whatever it may be. So that also directs how we’re going to move forward with the program.

TOS: So, tracking is not only is useful to help you to understand and optimise your program, but it can also help shape your program as well. Frequent site visits are an excellent way to keep a close eye on what’s going on and allow you to quickly react to any problems that come up. This is extremely valuable – especially for pilot programs that are looking to expand in the future.

CHAPTER 8: HOW POLICY CAN SHAPE YOUR ORGANICS RECYCLING PROGRAM

TOS: Every organics program is shaped by the regulatory structure it exists within. It can be supported by this structure, or it can be hindered by it. Throughout the show, we’ve come across examples of how policy has impacted on the programs we’ve covered. And it is no coincidence that the cities we chose for our case studies have some of the most progressive laws and policies in place today.

Places that put in place ambitious recycling targets, landfill or incineration diversion goals, or bans on organics going to landfills or incinerators as part of a sustainable waste management strategy are really important. They can create the necessary leverage needed to push for organics recycling. When supported and enforced properly, they can be a critical driver for collection programs. Every city we spoke to has a zero waste vision, or a zero waste commitment, with ambitious recycling targets. Most notably San Francisco – which leads the way in terms of ambitious policy – with just five years to reach zero waste in 2020.

Financial tools used by policy makers to promote organics recycling are important. Pay-as-you-throw systems for waste have been shown to greatly increase participation in recycling schemes in municipalities all around the world. And it makes sense: If buildings are charged more for waste collection than food scrap collection, it gives managers direct financial incentive to participate in the program.

ENZO FAVOINO: Bring systems never work as effectively as kerbside systems do. The true springboard towards zero waste has always been the implementation of a kerbside scheme targeting also the organics. With such a system, you quite easily jump up to seventy or eighty percent separate collection. Then, after that, in order to move further towards one hundred percent, what we do next is the implementation of a pay-as-you-throw scheme. And this increases separate collection by a further ten percent, but also it remarkably decreases the overall waste arisings.

TOS: But in a city where buildings are serviced by private haulers, municipalities can’t always control the price of collection. In some cases, where landfills are publicly owned, they can control how expensive it is to send the waste to these public facilities. Municipalities may also be able to raise tipping fees for garbage, and tax rates for landfilling or incineration, so that recycling once again becomes the more desirable option. This in turn will mean buildings are charged more for garbage collection and give them a reason to start composting!

There are also policy measures that indirectly impact on programs – which we saw in the case of Milan with the ban on chutes and the plastic bag ban that led to biobags becoming more available.

But perhaps what had the greatest impact on the cities we covered are mandates that require composting, or that organics stay out of waste bins.

MARCIA RUTAN: Basically we mentioned the two policies that have been the most critical: one requiring properties to subscribe, which was September 2011 – and that definitely had some impact but it had no enforcement quality to it, so it was not as strong as the new law which started this January that says no food waste in the garbage. And with that associated fine, that has had a very big impact on the properties wanting to participate.

LILY KELLY: When there’s an ordinance, or when there’s a law that requires composting, it really makes a difference. Just listening to the property managers changing their narrative it from, “Oh, I don’t know if I want to compost, it seems gross and smelly,” to, “How do we make this work?”

TOS: While it’s not a fix-all solution, the financial incentives that come with mandatory measures can make a huge difference – nobody wants to pay a penalty for not recycling properly. In multistory buildings, fines that are shared equally among tenants can help combat the anonymity factor. Enforcing these fines work best with a kerbside system.

Those are some of the key policy measures we’ve come across in the cities we’ve covered that have had a direct positive impact on programs. Having a strong policy framework will help steer everyone in the right direction, but it also has another great effect. It leaves program coordinators free to concentrate on doing their job, as opposed to spending their time fighting to change things for the better:

MARCIA RUTAN: Seattle is just a really leading-edge city in this. The agency I worked at previously had a pretty good program, but I always felt like in some ways I had to fight for recycling and composting to continue. Whereas when I’m working with Seattle, I basically feel like I’m swimming as fast as I can to catch up. And it’s wonderful! I can go as fast as I can to do as much as possible and there’s still room for opportunity. It’s really great!

FINAL CONCLUSION

So we’ve come to the end of our show, and it’s been a great journey. We’ve covered a lot of ground on this topic and there is a lot to take in.

But what we’ve seen through this show is that while multi-residential organics programs have their challenges, it is very possible to roll out a well-running, successful scheme.

The success of the programs we covered is a result of careful planning of the system, building strong relationships with key partners, working with building managers to find solutions, spending time with focus-groups to craft a successful outreach campaign, investing in communication, and taking a step-by-step approach to implementation.

They each use a combination of different strategies – all tailored to suit the needs of the specific building, or area, that they’re targeting. Your program’s success is predicated on your ability to execute consistently all the strategies we discussed, and to continually measure and improve your approach as you go along.

And in the case of Milan especially, we can see that with the right system and approach, and a supportive policy to back it up, organics recycling programs in multi-residental buildings can be rolled out with no more difficulty than any other organic recycling scheme.

So while multi story residential buildings can be a challenge for many cities, combining the wealth of experiences and best practices from the leading cities, we have a great roadmap to guide us on our journey.

On our journey through the planning stages of multi-residential organics programs, we’ve come across many challenges. But as more and more cities start tackling food waste in their apartment buildings, we’re creating a whole library of experiences, best practices, and successful strategies to learn from. In Episode 3, we begin to take a closer look at the cities leading the way (focusing on Milan and Los Angeles), and explore the key strategies they use that makes them so successful.

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INTRODUCTION

THE ORGANIC STREAM: On our journey through the planning stages of multi-residential organics programs, we’ve come across many challenges. Some easy to deal with, others still difficult to solve – like the problem with chutes in San Francisco.

It’s clear that just like buildings, no two cities are alike – each have their own history, culture, unique demographics and structure – And all of this will impact how an organics recycling system should be designed. But what connects all the cities we’ve talked to is their determination to succeed, their skill in navigating problems, and their drive to improve.

And as more and more cities like these start tackling food waste in their apartment buildings, we’re creating a whole library of experiences, best practices, and successful strategies to learn from.

In the final two episodes, we take a closer look the cities leading the way – and explore just what are the key strategies they use that makes them so successful.

Let’s jump right in!

CHAPTER 1: PILOTING AND PARTNERSHIPS – LOS ANGELES CASE STUDY

TOS: On this show, we’ve talked a lot about building relationships. With tenants, with building managers…and we’re going to kick-start this episode by exploring another essential relationship for any organics program to work: the relationship between the key partners.

Because without communication and collaboration between program coordinators, haulers and processors, outreach teams and building managers too, collecting and recycling organics would become an impossible task. It really takes a team effort to make it work.

And over the course of producing this show, there was one program that really stood out to us showed…us just how beneficial this team building is.

I’m taking us back to Los Angeles.

JESSICA ALDRIDGE: Hi, my name is Jessica Aldridge, I’m the sustainability manager for Athens Services, I’ve been there for three years.

TOS: Here we are, standing outside the Old Bank District multistory building with Jason Sanders and Jessica Aldridge as we get ready to take a tour and learn all about their pilot program.

JESSICA ALDRIDGE: And so I and my crew at Athens wanted to do something ahead of time to figure out how this was going to work. What things are going to work well, what road bumps are we going to come up against. We wanted to try to pick apartment complexes with varying demographics and situations with how their waste is collected, and set up different types of infrastructure to see what works best, and what type of outreach works best. Because what works here may not work for somewhere else. And so in 2017, when the franchise agreement comes into play in the city of Los Angeles, we will already have the experience and the resources available to us to say “now we know”, when I have ten apartment complexes coming to me wanting to do this, I and my crew, and the staff at Athens are not going to feel overwhelmed and say “I’ve never done this before”.

TOS: So Jessica gives us an insight into their thinking in starting up the program. From here, Jessica and her team started looking for the right partners to work with – and those partners were Global Green USA and EcoSafe ZeroWaste.

Together they make an effective team – Jason and Jessica work closely together, visiting the properties every month and address any issues together. And it is clear that all three partners share the same goal for the program.

JASON SANDERS: Well it’s just really important for all partners to have a good understanding of what’s working and what’s not before a mass roll-out. So we’ve really got to dial in the success factors and those factors that aren’t working, and be able to address those. And that’s really what this pilot program is doing right now.

JESSICA ALDRIDGE: We work with the apartment managers, we tell them exactly what’s going to be happening. And then from there you have to get the buy-in from the managers as well, that this is something that they want to take on, and knowing that this most likely be a long-term pilot until we can get the right feet underneath it. And we knew from the beginning – we never thought we were going to kick this thing off and it was going to be perfect from the beginning. I don’t want it to be perfect. Well, I want it to be perfect in the end, but I don’t want it to be perfect in the beginning, because if it is you learn very little to be able to move forward and create these types of programs more so down the road.

TOS: So the pilot acts as a learning experience for all partners – instead of looking for perfection, you’re looking for the challenges. This is how a program grows strong. And overcoming those challenges can only happen when all partners understand and share this same purpose.

When we sat down to chat in the café on the first floor of the Old Bank District Building, we took the time to ask about their partnership, and what they considered important when selecting partners and building a strong program.

JASON SANDERS: Three crucial partners are always needed: hauler and processer being one, building manager is number two, and then we have us as a partner that has the tools for the program. And if you have communication outreach partner as well that always comes in handy, and in this case Global Green was that partner. And those partnerships have to be valued from the very beginning of designing the program, to the program launch, to long-term viability of the program. So those partners are together through that entire process.

TOS: So for a program to work, all key partners need to stick together from the very beginning, and all through the process. If there is a lack of communication or a lack of support from any of these partners, the program will suffer. As we saw in LA, all three key partners of the pilot program can keep communication channels open, learn from each other’s experiences and build a strong foundation for the future when the program expands.

CHAPTER 2: SUCCESSFUL ROLL-OUT STRATEGIES – MILAN CASE STUDY

TOS: Milan – a city of 1.4 million people at the northern Lombardy region of Italy. Milan began roll-out of its city-wide organics recycling system in November 2012 and is currently the largest city in the world running a formal separate collection scheme for organic materials. It’s also the city with the highest capture rates in Europe: with an average of 95 kg, or just over 200 pounds, of food waste being collected per inhabitant a year.

On top of this, almost 90 percent of the population in Milan lives in multistory residences – and still the contamination rate stays below 5 percent.

So how does the system operate?

In multistory buildings, it’s quite standardised: tenants collect their food scraps in kitchen caddies, and bring these down to the common waste room to throw into wheelie bins. Even tenants living in very high buildings, like skyscrapers, are expected to bring their scraps to the waste rooms on the ground floor – since there are no chutes in the city.

Then, the bins are brought to the curb on certain days for pickup. It’s important to note here that Milan operates a kerbside collection scheme, or door-to-door collection scheme. This is the system used in all the cities we’ve talked to – and for good reason.

By collecting from each household or building, haulers and program coordinators can track who is participating and who isn’t. They can more easily reward those who are doing it right, and can target those who are doing it wrong. In Milan, this means a fine for contamination – and for multistory buildings, the fine is shared among tenants – giving them a reason to recycle properly. And, by performing well, neighbourhoods can also compete for prize money for local schools – as a sort of reward.

Let’s compare this with the more traditional bring system – where people put their organics in a roadside container or fixed spot outside their building. There is no control over how well sorted the materials are. Because it’s impossible to know who puts what inside, it means people can contaminate the stream without fear of consequences. For example, the bring system for organics in Barcelona, Spain, experiences a contamination rate between 15 to 30 percent – much higher than Milan. Because of this anonymity, cities lose the ability to target offenders, and also to reward those who do well.

So while kerbside collection systems are relatively new to cities, they are proving to be a great way to ensure success for organics recycling programs.

And this is the case in Milan. The scheme is also known for being quite popular with residents, and this popularity is the result of a very smooth and well-coordinated roll-out strategy.

But how did a city with so many multistory residential buildings manage to roll-out so smoothly?

ENZO FAVOINO: We did a customer satisfaction analysis last year, and we came up with very intriguing results…

TOS: This is Enzo Faviono – researcher and advisor at the Scuola Agraria del Parco di Monza in Italy, coordinator of the Working Group on Composting and Sustainable Waste Management.

EF: Seventy nine percent of the population declared support of the system, with a critical area of those showing to be unhappy only totalling seven percent of the population.

TOS: Enzo and his team played an instrumental role in helping the city of Milan implement their organics recycling scheme. During our call in the summer, I asked Enzo to tell us all about their strategy, and the critical factors for their success…

EF: So we did a couple of campaigns in order to test the contamination rate, and the outcomes were very, very satisfactory because we found more than ninety five percent purity of collected food waste, which puts Milan in line with the outcomes of the border municipalities. So, it’s not a matter of a densely populated area relative to a small village; it’s a matter for the type of the scheme.

TOS: I wanted to start with this clip, because it straightaway hones-in on the key element for success. Milan is a big and very dense city. But even with these challenges and with so many high rises, Milan was able to match the border municipalities’ low contamination rates and keep the system running smoothly.

Enzo is saying that size does not matter, but the type of scheme does. So what type of scheme do we need to be successful?

EF: If it generates comfortability for the people they will participate, and they will adopt the proper care for the system to be run. We tend to believe that we can’t ask people to provide excess effort. We don’t want it to be made painful for them to participate in separate collection, so it has to be made as user friendly as possible.

TOS: This brings us back to that old mantra: Convenience is king. So what was it that Milan did to make their scheme as convenient as possible for residents?

EF: First of all, let me mention that Milan was divided into four quarters, each of which totalled a population of three hundred and fifty thousand people. So the scheme was implemented by steps. The first step covering the first quarter of three hundred and fifty thousand people in November 2012, then the second in June 2013, the third quarter in December 2013, and the fourth in June 2014. So in slightly more than one and a half years we could cover one hundred percent of the population.

Whenever we implemented the system in a new area, we gave a starter kit to the households which included the kitchen caddies, to have a good, clean management of the organics in the kitchen, and a starting role of fifty biobags. Fifty biobags may cover the needs for half a year. In Milan we have two collection rounds per week, so we would normally need one hundred bags a year per household. But we gave them only fifty for the first six months, because now the system in Italy is fundamentally supported by the fact that Italy was the first country in Europe to adopt a full ban on polyethylene shopping bags. So now in all the supermarkets you can get a shopping bag that is biodegradable, so you can use it once as a shopping bag, and a second time as a lining for the kitchen caddie during the collection of biowaste.

TOS: Enzo gives us a few points here to think about. The polyethylene shopping bag ban in Milan increased the level of convenience for tenants, Enzo tells us. We know from episode two the problems that New York are facing – when people can’t afford or find biobags, they can end up using polyethylene plastic bags instead.

Another point of interest is the delivery of biobags and kitchen caddies before roll-out. This is very convenient for tenants first of all, but both biobags and kitchen caddies are also great tools to tackle the infamous “yuck” factor – which can often make people squeamish about an organics program. Using these tools, Enzo reported that the “yuck” factor was not much of an issue for residents.

EF: Yuck was not a main issue for disappointment. That’s basically because the use of the biobags is incredibly helpful in this respect. We also used vented kitchen caddies, because by using the transferability of the biobags and the vents in the kitchen caddies, we tend to lose up to twenty percent of the whole weight of food waste in terms of water vapour. So we tend to have only small amounts, if any, of leakage at the bottom of the biobags. But in any case, it’s fully kept by the biobags, so this keeps the system tidy.

TOS: Now, we can’t finish talking about convenience factors in Milan without mentioning one of the biggest contributors. The closing of chutes by the city. In episode one we dived into the problem with chutes, and how they impact programs like San Francisco’s and New York’s…

EF: We used to have the chutes in the past. Of course the chutes would kill any effort on separate collection, because the take responsibility away from the households, unfortunately. Now, no new building may have any chutes, and they were fully closed in the old buildings.

TOS: Enzo’s words really drive-home how big an impact chutes can have – it can kill an organics collection program. Inadvertently, Milan’s health and safety policy had a positive knock-on effect for their organics system. While San Francisco is currently trying to support building owners in closing their chutes, they face a certain level of resistance from the tenants board . Closing chutes can be a politically challenging, but nevertheless, it has to be said that policies like Milan’s can really help to level the playing field.

CHAPTER 3: COLLECTING ORGANICS – FREQUENCY AND WHAT TO COLLECT

TOS: Now, Enzo had some interesting things to say about what goes on in the back end as well. How the material is collected can have an impact on convenience for residents. In general, weekly collections of organics are recommended. According to a 2009 Organics Working Group report, published by the Recycling Council of British Colombia, the Canadian city of Ottawa conducted of collection frequencies of organics programs across North America. And it was found that those that have a bi-weekly garbage collection and weekly organics collection have a significantly higher diversion rate than those that collect organics bi-weekly instead. The frequency will of course depend on climate and time of year as well. In some places, like Milan, it’s better to collect food scraps twice a week to keep it convenient for residents. But collections can be expensive, and for this reason it can sometimes be a challenge to collect so frequently. And Enzo gave some great information on how Milan, and many other cities, tackle this issue.

EF: We consider what is the operational tradition, which has by now been consolidated in Italy and other European countries, which considers the different nature of the two main types of organics: food waste and garden waste. It’s worth considering collecting them separately, because on the one hand with food waste, we have a material that shows high fermentability and therefore needs to be collected quite frequently, but it’s also very heavy. Therefore it makes little if any sense to use a packer truck. On the other hand, we have got a material which is very bulky, such as garden waste, and therefore we should be using a compactor in order to collect garden waste at the kerb. But it is much less fermentable than food waste, so it doesn’t make much sense to collect them together.

One of the critical operational points for cost optimisation of the system is the use of dedicated trucks to collect food waste. It makes little if any sense to use the compactors to collect food waste. The compactor is one of the traditional trucks, as long as you collect mixed garbage, because mixed garbage tends to have a much lower bulk density than food waste itself. So one of the key issues is to consider a different composition of the fleet of vehicles. And in this respect we know that in many cities in past years, the investment costs were only focused on the purchase of big packer trucks. So, my recommendation would be to please start considering changing the composition of your fleet at the next procuring procedure for your fleet. That’s the most important thing.

CHAPTER 4: COMMUNICATION STRATEGY IN MILAN

TOS: So we’ve gained a lot of insight into best practices for roll-out from Milan. But we’re not finished yet.

The next important part of the roll-out strategy is communication of the program.

People need to be prepared for the changes to come. They need to understand why the changes are happening, when they will come into force, and how exactly the scheme will run.

In Milan, it’s thought that communication works best roughly two months in advance – just enough time for tenants to get familiar with it.

They began their campaign with street advertising, mailing brochures, launching a website and a free app as well – both of which allowed people to learn more and ask questions about the scheme.

Door-to-door delivery of the starter kits began 10 weeks before roll-out. This delivery process gave the outreach team an excellent chance to reach residents one-on-one to discuss the changes in person, addressing any concerns straight away. In a multistory building, where it’s often hard to reach people, this is a really effective strategy.

And it worked – roll-out was quite smooth and the residents behaved correctly straight away. This is one of the most important points to take away from the Milan study – if implemented correctly, you can achieve high participation rates right from the beginning. The trick, it seems, is to maintain that high rate.

Now, I know we played this in episode two, but for the final part of this case study, I’d like to take a listen once more to Enzo emphasising this point because it’s so important:

EF: One thing I would like to stress is that it may seem a paradox, but normally we tend to have the best results the very first week we start the system. You know, it’s what we call the “shocking effect”: we literally flood them with information and awareness campaigns. So the very first week we have always got the best results, which goes against the so-called received wisdom, because normally they tell us it will take ages to have people educated. No! They because right away.

Then, we have to keep the good level of results, because if you don’t provide the feedback to people telling them the way it is working, what the critical issues are, how to improve, and so on, then there will be some relaxation from the commitment. But if they get targeted every so often with messages saying “Hey you’re doing well, and we have saved such an amount of money” and so on and so forth, this helps keep the good levels both from the quantitative and qualitative angle.

CONCLUSION

TOS: Throughout this series we’ve often defined multistory buildings as the final frontier of organics recycling. But Milan demonstrates that this is not always the case.

In Milan, the program ran smoothly right from the beginning. “People behave right away”.

Why do they behave right away, when in other cases it’s not so easy?

Perhaps it’s because it was a city-wide roll-out – backed by a system of fines and rewards to encourage people to comply. In the piloting stage it’s much more difficult because people aren’t compelled to behave.

And as we’ve seen, both San Francisco and Seattle are finding it much easier to get people to comply thanks to their government’s mandatory policies.

But we also cannot forget the impact that both the chute ban and the polyethylene plastic bag ban had in Milan. This made participation more convenient and helped reduce contamination in the stream.

But is that all there is to it? Is there not also a cultural component to this question? Perhaps programs in America are considered harder to enact compared to somewhere like Milan because where the culture and history is quite different. It has been said that the mood was right for citizens in Milan to change, since the garbage crisis of the 90s – when trash was piled on the streets – was still in people’s memory.

These are interesting questions we’re asking ourselves right now. We’re compiling all these thoughts and we may come back with a follow-up episode in the future.

Where people gather, there will be waste. An event the size of the Olympic Games generates about four-hundred kilograms of waste per minute – and half of that is organic. This week, we travel to Rio De Janeiro and speak with the Head of Cleaning and Waste at the 2016 Olympic Games about their sustainability plans, and take a retrospective look at London 2012 – the very first Olympics to include a Zero Waste to landfill program – in order to ask: just what does a sustainable, zero waste Olympics look like? And is it even possible? What are the lessons learned from London 2012, and what challenges do Rio face as they prepare for hosting the games next year?

Interview guests: Edison Sanromã, Head of Cleaning & Waste, Rio 2016 and Shaun McCarthy (OBE), Former Chair of the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012.

In part two of the show, we bring you highlights from the recent Save Our Soils event in Malmö, Sweden, that gathered international experts in soil science to share with us their knowledge and discuss today’s challenges to soil health. You can find video briefings and material from this event on our Events Page.

BiobiN® is a mobile, on-site organic/wet material management solutionthat starts the composting process and effectively manages odour from putrescible waste. BiobiN® can be used in a variety of outlets, including food manufacturing, restaurants, shopping centres, supermarkets…it’s endless. Wherever organic or wet materials are generated, BiobiN® is THE solution. For more, visit their website.

As world population grows and food production demand rises, it is of increasing importance to keep soils healthy, productive and capable of sequestering carbon. So how do we protect global soils from eroding? How do we keep them healthy? This seminar seeks to address these and other soil related questions by creating a space for discussion between scientists and practitioners, who battle with soil degradation every day.

Multistory buildings are often considered the final frontier of organics recycling – and it’s easy to see why. Densely populated with little space, there are a number of challenges to tackle when setting up a program. In episode two, we pick off where we left off in episode one and continue to explore these challenges, and the factors that will impact your program. With guests from cities around the world, we discuss tenant participation, reaching out to the different demographics, the differences between voluntary and mandatory programs, and bin lining strategies.

ecovio® is a high-quality and versatile bioplastic of BASF. It is certified compostable and contains biobased content. The main areas of use are plastic films such as organic waste bags, dual-use bags or agricultural films. Furthermore, compostable packaging solutions such as paper-coating and injection molding products can be produced with ecovio®. To find more information, visit their website.

EcoSafe® Zero Waste designs and implements cradle to cradle solutions for source separation of organics and recyclables with a focus on diverting organic waste from landfill to commercial compost facilities. We provide our customers with the products and services they need in order to build SUSTAINABLE, SOURCE SEPARATION and DIVERSION programs designed to achieve ZERO WASTE in communities, institutions, businesses, events and at home and in public. For more, visit their website.

EPISODE SLIDESHOW

Transcript:

CHAPTER 5: COMMITMENT FROM TENANTS

THE ORGANIC STREAM: As I said in the first episode, successful organics recycling is all about building relationships. Once you have established a relationship with the building manager or owner, the focus is going to be on getting the tenants on board and participating.

And this is not always easy.

Introducing an organics recycling program anywhere requires a commitment of time and resources into education, face-to-face engagement, tailoring your outreach strategies to specific demographics…and sustaining relationships.

In general: engagement strategies will consist of targeted outreach efforts well in advance of the program roll-out. Then, after roll-out, the focus is on increasing participation with continuous on-site education, gathering feedback, reworking flyers and messaging – and so on.

With multistory buildings, there are a few extra challenges you can face in terms of tenant engagement.

Firstly, the turnover of tenants – which can be quite high depending on the property – will mean you need to ensure that every new person moving into the building is educated and aware of the program. This is often taken on by the building managers.

As well as the transient nature of the populations, there is sometimes a lack of a community feeling in a multistory building – which can lead to lack of interest in attending building meetings, for example, or just a lack of interest in how well the building is performing. As I said many times in the first episode, every building is different and your outreach strategies will have to be tailored to meet the building’s unique challenges – which includes getting tenants invested in the program.

We won’t be delving too deep into the engagement and education strategies here, because we’re focusing heavily on this in our upcoming case-study episode. But it’s important to get an overview of kind of work it involves. And for this I want to take us back to New York.

Last episode, we heard from Jessica Schreiber of the DSNY about their voluntary organics recycling pilot program. When we spoke about getting tenants involved and engaged, Jessica summed up the basic strategy they employ.

JESSICA SCHREIBER: Whenever you’re working with the public you should know your audience. So, we do a lot of work with community boards, because they’re a good window into what’s important in that community and how they’re accessing information. So sometimes we start at the community board level and then work down. We do try to have the whole range of ways for people to become engaged. So, we always have flyers and paper brochures, we always have the website; we’ve launched social media, so we have Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – hopefully to reach everybody. It’s a challenge: eight million people who are all very different. So it’s always a challenge to try and reach everybody.

TOS: So as you can hear, New York, like many other cities I’ve talked to, are using a lot of different avenues to reach the tenants – including flyers, website, and social media. But key to every strategy, it seems, is face-to-face communication.

This brings me back to an episode we did last year with director of the Recycling Unit of the DSNY’s Bureau of Waste Prevention, Bridget Anderson.

At the time, I quizzed Bridget about their outreach campaigns, and she stressed the importance of taking a hands-on approach.

BRIDGET ANDERSON: Once an area becomes a pilot area where people are receiving the program itself, the on the ground outreach has been extremely useful. Not everybody reads the mailers: if you receive a mailing from the city, it might end up directly in your recycling bin – hopefully your recycling bin! And so, having people out there on the ground during bin deliveries to really make sure people understand the program is important. The elected officials and community boards have also often hosted meetings where people can come and ask questions.

During those periods, we’ve encountered people who are just so excited about the program, and we’ve also encountered people who say, “this really isn’t for me”. So we really try to change hearts and minds, and having people on the ground, and face-to-face communication, has been critical to getting people to even try the program.

TOS: Now, this is primarily focused on engaging tenants at the beginning. But what about keeping up the level of commitment after program roll out?

I put this question to Enzo Favoino when I called him a couple of weeks ago, looking for insights into Milan’s multistory strategies. Enzo is a researcher and advisor at the Scuola Agraria del Parco di Monza in Italy and the scientific coordinator of Zero Waste Europe and we’ll be hearing more from him on Milan’s success in the next episode – but I wanted to include his answer to my question here because what he had to say was very interesting…

ENZO FAVOINO: One thing I would like to stress is that it may seem a paradox, but normally we tend to have the best results the very first week we start the system, both from the quantitative and qualitative angles. It’s what we call the “shocking” effect: we literally flood them with information and awareness campaigns. So the very first week we always have the best results, which goes against the so-called received wisdom, because normally they tell us, “No, it will take ages to have people educated”. No! They behave right away. Then, we have to keep the good level of results, because if you don’t provide the feedback to people telling them the way it is working, what are the critical issues, how to improve, and so on, then there will be some relaxation from the commitment. Because maybe they think the local authorities aren’t focused so much on the system, and then they wonder why they should care about it either. But if they get targeted every so often with messages saying, “Hey, you’re doing well, we have saved such an amount of money”, and so on and so forth, this helps keep up the good levels both from the quantitative and qualitative angles.

TOS: This is an important point that Enzo brings up. Without consistent communication right from the beginning, it may seem to tenants that the program is not much of a priority to the city, and people will start putting it lower on their priority list as well.

CHAPTER 6: MULTISTORY BUILDING DEMOGRAPHICS

TOS: Populations in high-density urban areas are extremely diverse. People from different countries, backgrounds, family situations, cultures and life experiences all make the city their home. And multistory residential buildings encapsulate this aspect of city life quite well.

Reaching out to tenants will require an understanding of the demographics in each building you work with. And from speaking to many program managers, it seems that the demographics that gain the most focus are language and ethnicity, and to a certain extent, age as well.

JASON SANDERS: We’re here today in Los Angeles, California, in the downtown region off of four hundred South Main street…

TOS: At a busy café just outside the Old Bank District Building sunny in Los Angeles, we spent time with Jason Sanders – national Zero Waste manager for EcoSafe Zero Waste who helped implement the organics recycling pilot program in the building – an eight floor multistory building with all but the first floor being residential.

JS: So there’re seventy total units at this building, and each floor has a refuse room that has a compost bin inside, and then a chute for their landfill and recyclables as well.

TOS: We spent the afternoon speaking to both him and Jessica Aldridge of waste hauler Athens Services about their experiences in working together to roll out and tracking the performance of their organics collection pilot program in LA. We also discussed the challenges they faced rolling out the program – and here, Jason shared with us their experiences in tailoring their program to the different demographics.

JS: One of the challenges that we’ve seen with setting up these multifamily food scrap programs is adopting the program to meet the specific building’s demographic needs. We have language barriers so we always have to adapt our education and outreach materials to work with that particular language, whether that’s Mandarin or Spanish or English. We have found that certain demographics, such as a more progressive and environmentally focused age group – from your Millennials to Generation X – adopt these programs more rapidly, than some of your older demographics. So it’s always a challenge trying to adapt the program to meet the specific building’s demographics. Here at this Old Bank District Building, we actually have a very progressive demographic that easily adopted the program. So we have demographics that really understand the full cycle of the organics here, where others might not have that knowledge.

TOS: Understanding the full cycle of organics.

This is something I want to focus on for a moment because it proves just how important it is to highlight the connection between the organics we throw in the bin, soil health, and the food we produce.

Jason suggests that it is the younger, more progressive demographics that have a ready understanding of this cycle, which makes implementing a program much easier. And showing tenants the connection between our food waste and the soil can be a great strategy for education or promotion of the program.

JS: We brought some of the finished compost that this material turns into, and we showed the residents the finished compost. So we educated them on what their food scraps turns into, which I believe was a really key component because a lot of the people that live in cities don’t quite understand that their food scraps actually turns into good-looking soil amendment. So that then clicked in their heads and of why it was important for them to separate their food scraps.

TOS: Environmentally aware tenants can be a great asset for a program. Even though this can often be a small demographic within a building – it only takes a few to make a difference. This is something I learned from Jessica Schreiber, when I asked her how many people were environmentally aware in the buildings she works with.

JESSICA SCHREIBER: From the tenant meetings that I’ve attended, I would say there was maybe ten to twenty percent who would ask questions like that, and then the other eight to ninety percent are much more concerned about whether it’s convenient, do they have to do it, and is it going to smell or bring rodents. So there’s that small group that is very interested in where this goes and why we’re doing it, if it stays local and how it’s composted. And I think because those people exist and ask those questions, it’s a greater educational moment for the whole building. Because everyone has those logistic questions and convenience questions, and then it’s that one step further – the “why” question – that I think is where it really becomes internalised.

TOS: But what about the main demographics to factor in your program? How do cities work with the different languages and ethnicities to reach everyone equally?

A few weeks back, I contacted Marcia Rutan to speak about the very recent mandatory composting program in Seattle, USA, and her work with education and outreach in the multistory residential buildings there.

MARCIA RUTAN: My name is Marcia Rutan and I work with Seattle Public Utilities in Seattle, Washington. And I work on multi-family food waste and recycling programs. My official title is Community Recycling Program Manager, and I’ve been here eight years this June.

TOS: Now, Seattle has a diverse population of six hundred and sixty thousand and over five thousand apartment buildings, and Marcia shared with me some of their valuable experience in working with the various demographics in the city.

MR: So we provide these two basic flyers for this program – Where Does It Go and the Food Waste flyer – in eighteen different languages. Now, these have all been translated, but the next step that we’re learning more about in the last year or so is something called Trans-creation. And that is something where the materials are actually made culturally relevant, as well as the wording being correctly translated, so it doesn’t mean something odd in the other language. So that will be the next step – going through these different languages and making them as pertinent and relevant as possible to the folks who are using them.

Also, when I go out to do presentations, I always ask if there are people speaking other languages who will be there, and we always bring interpreters if needed. We are also expanding our engagement of community liaisons, either through community-based organisations or individuals who are good educators: people who look like the people in that particular community.

TOS: And do you focus on reaching out to any other demographics? I’ve heard age mentioned as well as an important demographic for example…

MR: Sure. Yes, we do have some focus on that, thought I would say not as much as on the ethnic diversity. Now for instance, I am an older person at this point, and I go out to a lot of the senior properties, and they really like that because I’m closer to them in age. They can relate to me and I can say, “I’m going to be retiring soon, and I know you’re on a limited budget, but stillwe want to consider buying recycled products because that’s what keeps recycling going”…so that sort of thing. They can related to me, so I cover the older group in a lot of ways. And we also go to a lot of different festivals and fairs, and so we really make an effort to reach a diversity of folks through those festivals – whether it’s a university district street fair that was just this last weekend, which was very much fosuced on younger people. So that’s another aspect. We do have Twitter, we do have Facebook. And that’s not just for the younger people: we know that a lot of people of ethnic diversity are on their smartphones, and that that’s a primary computer for them. So, it’s just a great way to reach a lot of folks.

TOS: So as you can hear, there are a lot of different ways to reach out and a lot to factor in. Again, you have to be prepared to invest a substantial amount time and resources into outreach if you are to be successful. And it’s a long-term thing – engaging the tenants is a never-ending process.

And having someone from within a specific community on your outreach team can be especially important for connecting to that community.

CHAPTER 7: NATURE OF ORGANICS PROGRAM – VOLUNTARY OR MANDATORY

TOS: Throughout this special edition, we’ve been discussing both mandatory and voluntary programs, and we touched on a few of the differences between them in episode one – particularly in relation to getting building managers on-board.

The nature of your program will have an impact on the people you’re trying to engage and on your approach, as we’ve seen.

With voluntary programs, it’s all about winning people’s hearts and minds as there is no mandate to put fire under people’s feet. While this may mean you have less buildings participating, I learned from Jessica Schreiber in New York that working with interested buildings only has some unique benefits.

JESSICA SCHREIBER: I think the benefit of voluntary is that we can work with buildings that we have relationships with, buildings who are eager and want to do this. So we may get less material with the voluntary group, because it’s not mandated, but because they’re very engaged and are really supportive, we’re hoping that material is cleaner than it would be had we just said everybody needs to do this. So at this point we’re sort of hoping for more clean material, and a very voluntary and very feel-good program, versus a mandatory where maybe we would get more tonnage but it might not be as high of quality.

TOS: Now, Jessica mentions the feel-good aspect of the program, and this made me wonder just how important that feel-good factor is for success. So I asked her – how important is the popularity of the program, and how much does it depend on creating a positive experience for buildings and tenants?

JS: I think the popularity is a key part of it. One is that we’re able to show that there’s interest. So, we’re hoping to add a fourth truck to Manhattan this summer and that’s just based off the fact that we’ve had so many inquiries, and we know that we should be able to create a full route just from the inquiries that we have. So the popularity of the program is a huge part of it. And the other half of that is that we want to make sure the service consistent, that the education up-front is good, and that we really take a special interest in these buildings so they feel supported. Because all that makes them more likely to tell the next building, or their friend who’s also a super, “I have this program, it’s easier than it looks. It’s really simple and you should do it”. So, we’re hoping the city support on our end – the work that we’re doing to bring the buildings on board – is part of it, and that the buildings spread word and that popularity grows.

TOS: Mandatory programs, in contrast, can be a lot more challenging, where the aim is to reach full compliance and at the same time keep the contamination rate as low as possible. This means increasing education and outreach efforts, dealing with difficult buildings and handing out fines – as we heard from Alexa Keitly in the last episode.

This can be daunting, and it’s generally considered best practice to work in steps: Beginning as a voluntary program, for example, and transitioning to mandatory once the system is rolling and the kinks have been ironed out. This can take many years.

In Seattle, they took this step-by-step approach – first making it mandatory to provide organic waste carts in apartment buildings in 2011 before moving to the composting mandate that is in place from this year. This was a very effective tactic, as Marcia Rutan explained to me.

MARCIA RUTAN: There was a lot of work already that went into building the foundation for this. Basically, in Setpember of 2011, Seattle city council made it mandatory that all multi-family properties would have food waste carts. So there was somebody I hired and who has worked with me for a number of years, who was doing technical outreach while I was handling the educational outreach and phone trouble-shooting. So we definitely got a certain flood of inquireies about this, and starting in 2009, really, we were working very hard to get all of the properties up and going with the food waste carts. And by December 2011, a few months after that law went into effect, we basically knew we were going to roll-out carts to anybody who was left over out of the five-thousand who hadn’t signed-up. And in fact there were only a few hundred left. So we really worked hard to get that subscription base established.

Now, just because a property had a cart, did not mean they were using it. There were definitely instances where they stashed it in the closet in a store room and they didn’t want to deal with it. They just thought, “I’ll just pay my monthly subscription and I’m not going to deal with the program”. So the next stage has been participation – and we’ve done a lot of work with on-site education and technical assistance to build the participation. And we could tell who wasn’t participating, because we would get reports from the drivers who knew which properties consistently didn’t have carts out or where there were carts missing continually. So we would get those reports and target those properties – especially the large ones, because there was more impact there.

So we definitely had built up some level of participation. And then this next stage has really caught the attention of a number of properties who are very concerned about the fine and want to either get their service going, or improve it substantially so they don’t get the fine.

TOS: So here you get a sense not only of the differences in challenges and benefits between the programs, but how much time it can take to build up participation and prepare for mandatory organics collection. As we heard from Marcia, Seattle have been working since 2009 on introducing collection in multistory buildings and this definitely helped smooth the transition.

Since there are so many facets involved in setting up programs in multistory buildings, this is no surprise. No matter the nature of the program, it’s important to be patient and keep a long-term perspective in mind.

CHAPTER 8: BIN LINING STRATEGIES & COMPOSTABLE PLASTICS

TOS: We’ve nearly come to the end of the episode and there is one last topic to discuss.

At all stages of the organics recycling process, the organic stream needs to be kept as clean as possible. Keeping contamination low is a constant battle, and how the organics are transported from household bins to recycling containers and then to the collection trucks can have a great impact.

What we’re talking about here is lining strategies.

With lining strategies we’re back in the same familiar situation of trying to balance tenant and building manager convenience with practicality for program managers. On one hand, tenants (and building staff as well) will be more comfortable using something like plastic bags for collecting food waste, and on the other, composting facilities want as clean a stream as possible so ideally it would be best to have no bin linings whatsoever.

So how can we balance these two sides?

Well, first of all, there is a general lining hierarchy that many cities adhere to – giving people a list of options for carrying their food waste from best to worst.

JESSICA SCHREIBER: So we give people a lining hierarchy. Always our first choice is no lining, and you can just rinse the bin out. The second choice would be paper – either lining it with a paper bag or newspaper, because that’s going to break down with the food. Third choice would be compostable bags, and last choice – which we really don’t want, but are willing to accept – is clear plastic bags.

TOS: Now, in terms of having no bin lining at all – this can be a bit too much for both tenants and building managers alike and increase the yuck factor, as they will be faced with having to clean out bins regularly – something Marcia Rutan pointed out to me.

MARCIA RUTAN: We did a test project in about 2007-2008, to test how this would work or can it even work in multi-family properties, and one of the results of that project was that the property managers really want a compostable liner in the cart. It was not quite a deal-breaker, but it was close – like a “give us that liner or else”, kind of feeling. So that’s been one thing that has helped with the “ick” factor.

TOS: Now, Jessica mentioned that New York accepts, as a last resort, polyethylene plastic bags for those who would not participate otherwise.

While this is not an ideal situation, and contributes to higher contamination levels, it does highlight the fact that many people are so used to the practicality and cleanliness of using plastic – particularly for wet materials like organics – that they may shy away from participating without having that level of comfort.

This is where compostable plastic bags can sometimes be a great benefit.

MARCIA RUTAN: We have just done a test project with some compostable bag dispensers. This is something that properties can hang up right near the compost cart, and then residents can pull out a little green approved-compostable bag, take it back up to their apartment home and use it, and bring it back down and take another bag. And that also reduces odours, and keeps the flies down. I was quite resistant to these bags at first, because it just seemed like one more thing to have to buy and use, and was not in-line with my waste prevention ethic. But I have become quite sold on them for at least certain situations. I think they definitely work, and where people can afford these dispensers I think it makes a lot of sense.

TOS: While they can be a great solution – there are some challenges to be aware of. Not all compostable bags are alike – some composting facilities may not be able to give them the time needed for them to break down and others may not accept compostable plastics at all. So finding a facility that will accept the bags being used will be essential.

And New York has had extra challenges in terms of compostable plastic bags – availability. Here’s DSNY’s Bridget Anderson from last year once again, sharing their experiences.

BRIDGET ANDERSON: The availability of those compostable bags has been a problem. It’s taken us a while to get the bags into retail stores – there are also online outlets for the bags. The price of the bags has been a problem; some people say the bags are to expensive and they won’t use them, or that they would participate in the program if they could use the bags, but the bags are too expensive – that’s an example of something that’s been a challenge…Our hope is that eventually the compostable bags will maybe become cheaper and be more available, and then we can switch out the regular plastic bags.

TOS: Lining strategy will have a big impact on your program’s success – and there are pros and cons to each of the possible solutions you can choose. Availability, affordability, convenience and contamination are key elements to pay attention to, as well as giving people a range of options to suit their situation.

EPISODE END

TOS: And here we leave the topic of challenges and factors to take into account when setting up a program.

We’ve covered a lot of ground here on the show in this episode – hopefully it’s helped you get a solid understanding of the main factors and challenges faced with implementing an organics program in multistory buildings. And hopefully we’ve helped answer at least some of your questions too. But if not, never fear, because we are only getting started.

Stay tuned for the next episode, where we invite more program managers and recycling specialists to discuss case studies and explore the most successful strategies for the all the issues we’ve addressed so far.

In urban areas all around the world, we are stretching towards the sky – to save space on the ground, and make room for our growing populations. In this Multistory Special, we explore the major challenges and factors we need to pay attention to when planning an organics program in a multistory residential building, and we invite guests from cities around the world who are leading the way with their programs to share their experiences. This week, we’re taking a look at the main challenges we face today and the major factors we need to address when we start recycling organics in any type of multi-story building. This will lay the foundation for the episodes to come.

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CHAPTER 1: BUILDING TYPES & CATEGORIES

THE ORGANIC STREAM: There is no unified classification of multi-story buildings. Usually they are categorised in terms of height. A typical description would be low-rise, mid-rise and high-rise buildings.

Low rise buildings have very few floors. Again, there are no unified rules here, but they usually are no more than 3 stories high. These are quite easy to work with and usually have a centralised collection point.

Mid-rise would generally be anything above 3 floors but below 8 floors. And high rises, then, are anything above 8 floors. These are typically the buildings we’re talking about in this episode – as they are the most challenging of the three categories.

It might also be useful to categorise the buildings by the type of waste and recycling facilities they have – since this will have a big bearing on how you approach the building. Buildings usually have either a chute system (single or multi chute), waste rooms on every floor, or a single collection area on the ground floor, garage, or in the courtyard.

No matter how you categorise them – it’s important to remember that each individual building will have its own challenges and advantages. For this reason, it could be useful to categorise them in terms of level of difficulty. This can take into account a range of issues that will effect your program like for example – whether there’s high turnover of tenants…. a lack of space or perhaps ventilation issues in the building…or if the building manager uninterested.

CHAPTER 2: LOGISTICS: WASTE ROOMS, CHUTES

TOS: So…where exactly are you going to put your bins, and how will the hauler access them? Are you working in a building with limited space and maybe ventilation issues? Is there a chute system in the building? Do you want to use it for organics?

These are some of the key logistical question you’ll ask yourself in the beginning. And your decisions and how you implement them will have a great impact on success.

(Introduction to Linda Corso)

TOS: This is Linda Corso, manager of Cathedral Hill Plaza on 1333 Gough Street, San Francisco.

We took a trip to California last month to get a first-person view of the organics recycling program in the state and some of the buildings involved that have been successful. And we met with Linda, who was kind enough to show us around and tell us how the system works in her building. Cathedral Hill Plaza was built in the 1960s, so it’s an older building – it has 169 units, with 14 stories altogether. And Linda began a composting program at the building before it was even mandatory.

LINDA CORSO: When I first read about it in the paper that Recology was starting composting, I started looking into it and talked to them about getting composting bins, which we initially put in the garage, and then just sent a memo to our tenants that composting was available. It didn’t work so well!

TOS: Linda told us that nobody wanted to carry their icky compost bags all the way down to the garage when it was easier just to keep dumping it in the trash bin on their floor.

LINDA CORSO: Then I contacted SF Environment and they came out, walked through with me, got the slim-jim bins for both recycling and composting for our trash rooms – we have trash rooms on every floor, which makes it easier for the tenants. And they also came with Recology and set up in our lobby and brought bins and bags for tenants, and had an education thing one evening. They gave people a comfort level that there weren’t going to be bugs crawling all over – we empty the bins in the hallways every day. And it really took off.

TOS: So in terms of logistics….to make the program work, bins were placed where tenants were already going to leave their waste. Instead of having them in the basement where they were less convenient.

Linda showed us the waste rooms and they were spacious, thanks to the slim bins – and clean – thanks to the waste being collected every day. All in all, this is an excellent set-up. And after talking to Linda, here was me thinking that this system was probably the most ideal for buildings with waste rooms.

But actually the truth is that using waste rooms in this way is not all that common or straight forward.

(Trying to reach Alexa Keilty and getting voicemail).

TOS: This is me trying to reach Alexa Keilty zero waste specialist at the department of Environment in San Francisco, who designed and implemented the multistory building food scrap collection & composting program. San Francisco has 8500 multistory buildings they work with, and their composting and recycling mandate has been in place since 2009. Just how has San Francisco navigated the waste room situation – and what do they do when a system like Linda’s doesn’t work?

ALEXA KEILTY: So when we’re setting up a building, we look at if there’s an opportunity to collect on each floor; and if they have a trash room we look at that and we do provide bins at no cost for apartment buildings to collect on each floor – as long as they have maintenance staff in the building willing to collect it. And I have set up composting on each floor in buildings and it doesn’t always work if you don’t have proper ventilation and if you don’t have maintenance staff on Saturday and Sunday – because those typically are the days that people take their trash out, on the weekends. And you don’t want to have fish that someone cooked the night before in a non-vented trash room for fourty-eight hours, because that’s going to create a real problem. And typically for the residents who live in close vicinity to the trash room – they’re the ones who complain first – so it doesn’t always work.

So when we’re setting up programs, I think that’s the main thing we look at: how do we equal the playing field? Most of the time, because of space constraints and we’re dealing with an older building stock, we’re talking about requesting the tenants to walk it down into basement areas to dispose of their recycling and composting, and then the trash chute is still there.

TOS: Trash chutes. Here we come to one of the biggest challenges for programs in multistory buildings.

I have here a 2011 report by the Recycling Council of British Colombia, that says that in Toronto city, high-rise buildings with garbage chutes had significantly lower levels of participation and higher levels of contamination than buildings without chutes. And this seems to confirm what I’ve been hearing from our guests. Chutes are convenient, and easy to use. So for a mandatory program like San Francisco, where there is pressure to increase participation – what can we do about waste chutes?

So it’s all about levelling the playing field – and here Alexa told me about a pretty interesting strategy they’re trying out to do just that…

ALEXA KEILTY: On every floor within a high rise building there’ll be a chute where people can just throw their trash, and it’s prioritising trash over all the other streams. So something to keep in mind is how can we stop prioritising trash, and how do we design and set up buildings from the get-go – and we have new ordinances requiring new construction to keep this in mind, but – when we’re talking about older buildings, how do we level the playing field?

And we also encourage property managers to close their chutes and force the tenants to walk everything down into the basement area. They usually love that idea, because chutes typically can attract pests and all it takes is somebody to put one pizza box down there and then you have a jammed chute. So, they love to close chutes, but the problem is that the tenants board in San Francisco is very strong, and some tenants may consider this a reduction in services – and if they see it as a reduction in services, then they can apply to the rent board for a rent reduction. So because of that, property managers are very fearful, they don’t want to deal with lawsuits…it’s just a very tenuous situation for them.

TOS: So that’s San Francisco’s waste chute strategy. But what about New York?

JESSICA SCHREIBER: I’m Jessica Schreiber, I work at the Department of Sanitation and the Bureau of Recycling and Sustainability. I oversee all apartment programs, so any recycling programs that have to do with high rise buildings fall under my group.

TOS: So New York’s organics recycling program is a voluntary program that has been up and running since 2013 and has been spreading through the City every since – with 148 high rise buildings involved in the program.

JESSICA SCHREIBER: Chutes are definitely our biggest issue when working with buildings – particularly some of the newer buildings in the city that have a chute room on every floor and residents are very used to just bringing everything to the chute room and separating it there. By far what we think is the best option for organics is a single collection point, usually it’s in the basement. We want everything brought one spot. For residents who aren’t used to having to go to the basement for anything, bringing a separate food stream to the basement is daunting. So we have a lot of conversations about chutes with the building management.

There are pros – if we were to make the chutes just for organics, and trash for the (hopefully) non-smelly items that can be separated on the side with the recyclables, that’s one option. There are not a lot of buildings in the city that have chosen to do that. Other cities, though, have reported that that option tends to create more of a smell and more of a maintenance issue, because this is loose food now going down the chute and getting stuck, and not always being bagged correctly. So we try to avoid chutes when we can and do a single collection area where possible. Usually that’s in the basement. There are buildings where they’ve tasked the super with collecting food scraps from a bin on each floor in the chute room – so where they have that sort of building help, that’s also possible.

TOS: So here we see more problems… It seems that avoiding chutes and focusing on a central collection point is a common strategy.

And this brought me on to talk about one of the first participants of their program – the Morningside Heights Housing Corporation. Morningside Heights is an impressive residential cooperative apartment complex comprised of 6 high-rise buildings in the borough of Manhattan – close to Columbia University. The buildings are each 21 stories high, with a total of 980 apartments. How they decided to introduce organics collection here I think is worth bringing up. They decided on a simple approach at the beginning – using a centralised system not for each building – but for the complex itself.

This had some unique benefits – not just in terms of reducing maintenance costs and equipment costs – which led to the program’s success in the building.

JESSICA SCHREIBER: Morningside Heights started as a drop-off point for the whole complex. So they have multiple buildings, and instead of every building having its own collection spot in the basement, there was a drop-off point for the whole complex. The benefit of that is that it’s convenient for the building staff, it’s convenient for us to collect becayse we’re just taking it right from that point to the curb and it’s all centralised. The other benefit of that is that when it’s a drop-off point, it makes it very easy to educate tenants about how to participate. It’s a very clear message, and it’s also a point of education, so people walking buy who aren’t aware that this is an option will see it and become more engage.

So I think it’s supportive of buildings who want to get their feet wet before they jump all the way in, and it’s also a good way to test it out. And you can see that when the bins are closed, they don’t smell because you’re getting service three times a week, so it doesn’t sit long enough to become a problem, and these solid plastic bins are not going to attract rodents. So it’s the best way to ease a building in and as residents become more used to bringing this stuff to this drop-off point, they’re going to actually want it to be in their basement because that’s even more convenient – like an added level of convenience to have it inside their own building, versus somewhere else in the complex.

TOS: So centralised systems have a lot of benefits, especially if you can overcome the tricky chute issue. And just like the waste rooms, you’ll have to make sure the area is convenient, has adequate space, is well lit and clean. And remember – no matter what system you chose, you need to factor in convenient access for the hauler as well.

LOGISTICS ROUND-UP

Now, we’ve covered quite a bit of ground in terms of logistics. Keeping in mind space constraints, how waste will be collected in the building and by the hauler, costs – so weather you can afford maintenance staff or the extra bins, convenience for tenants, odours and pests, and the problems with chutes.

In every aspect there’s a balance to be struck between convenience for the tenants, and practicality. And it can be tricky to do.

What really struck me, and what my guests have all pointed out, is that no two buildings are alike. – Like snowflakes, or like people, they have their own characteristics, challenges and personalities. And the strategy you employ will have to be completely tailored to each building’s needs.

CHAPTER 3: NEW BUILDINGS AND THE PROBLEM WITH OLDER BUILDINGS

TOS: In any given urban area, the age of the multistory buildings will factor into your organics recycling program.

What are the issues with older buildings? Well mainly that most of them have single-chute systems with tiny waste rooms – or no waste rooms at all. Putting composting on a level playing field in this situation is very hard.

Retrofitting is one solution – but an expensive one. San Francisco is encouraging people to close their chutes altogether – but there are some issues here too.

So let’s look at the bigger steps we can take. The City of Milan in Italy, for example, where the majority of people live in apartment buildings, decided to close all chutes in the city in order to level the playing field. And it’s working – chutes are closed and all organics are collected in waste rooms or central locations. We’ll get deeper into this during our Milan case study in a later episode.

Not all cities can take this approach. But they can make an impact in new buildings by requiring them to have adequate recycling facilities. Often, buildings are allowed to choose between a number of systems.

For example – Alexa mentioned the new building code in San Francisco that says all new construction has to have recycling, composting and trash on an equal playing field. So new buildings, she told me, often have decent sized waste rooms on every floor, which as a fan of waste room systems I think is great. New chute systems are an option as well – either with multiple chutes for each stream, or just one for organics. We already heard from Jessica about the possible issues with these.

Another interesting option that Alexa told me about are diverter systems for chutes – how do they hold up?

ALEXA KEILTY: So they’re now putting in diverter systems. Basically, it’s one chute with a button that you push and then there’s a baffle at the bottom of the chute which pushes the recycling, composting or trash into the right bin. The problem with those is that they never seem to work properly, or the tenants in the building haven’t been trained properly to use it, so I haven’t actually found one that’s been working well unfortunately.

TOS: “Okay so that’s a bit tricky then. I guess then the waste rooms are probably the best option at the moment”.

ALEXA KEILTY: Yeah, I think so. I mean, the problem is just labour – you have to have labour seven days a week and not all buildings have that.

CHAPTER 4: COMMITMENT OF BUILDING OWNERS & MANAGERS

TOS: Buildings are made up of people, and recycling systems are made up of people too. So successful organics recycling, then, is all about building relationships. With the tenants yes, but first of all with the building owner or manager.

In a 2014 report by the Washington State Recycling Association called Sorting It Out – The state of Multifamily Recycling in Washington State, it asked recycling professionals about the top challenges they face in program implementation. And it’s quite telling that lack of support from building managers is number three on the list of challenges, just behind space and contamination.

During our trip through California – we met with building managers…like Linda Corso…and saw just how valuable it is that they are fully on-board with the program and make it their own. But this isn’t always the case. There are factors that can influence their level of enthusiasm or commitment to the program. A building owner or manager may not know much about organics recycling – why it’s important, and whether it will cause odours and pests.

This is where education and outreach is essential.

JESSICA SCHREIBER: We do a lot of outreach, we go to a lot of building events and speak to a lot of management companies, and I always introduce organics and give a brief explination of how it works and why it’s important. When people hear that food waste is a third of our waste stream, that’s a pretty staggering statistic. So we always introduce it as part of the apartment program package. For buildings who express an interest, we will follow up enthusiastically – we’ll do a site visit and work with tenants to educate them along and bring them on board.

We do definitely encounter buildings that say “no thank you” and are not interested. They basically say “not until I have to am I even going to consider this”. I think there’s still some stigma around it – smell and rodents and stuff.

TOS: Now New York’s program is voluntary – which means they are dependent on building managers who are interested. Jessica told me that fortunately, they have their hands full with building owners who are – so they have no need to engage uninterested managers. But for a mandatory program – it’s a different story.

LILY KELLY: I’m Lily Kelly. I’m senior Program Associate for Global Green USA’s coalition for resource recovery. We’re based in Santa Monica, California and we have offices around the country in New York, New Orleans, Washington DC, and here in beautiful San Francisco.

TOS: We met with Lily Kelly of Global Green in her office during our trip last month. As part of Global Green’s goal to promote smart solutions for climate change, Lily has been exploring different solutions for organics recovery and working with cities [here you say ’systems’ instead of ‘cities, but it’s no big deal] on pilot projects in multistory residential buildings.

Lily told us how a mandatory program can affect the way building managers interact with the program…

LILY KELLY: When there’s an ordinance, or when there’s a law that requires composting, it really makes a difference and of course it does. It seems like a very obvious point to make, but just listening to the property managers changing their narrative about it from, “Oh, I don’t know if I want to compost, it seems gross and smelly” to, “How do we make this work? How do I make it not gross and smelly – by using bags or training my tenants better. How do I avoid any kind of fines for contamination – by teaching people how to do it and making signage really clear.” It really helps bring their minds to work on solving the problem, as opposed to just giving up on it and deciding it’s too hard. But then there are many other places where it’s still voluntary and that’s going to place a limit on it, if it’s more expensive.

TOS: Even though the mandatory aspect can bring more people along – there will still be hesitant building managers. And one of the biggest barriers to their commitment is a worry over cost. This is an area you will need to address for mandatory programs, but even more so for voluntary programs.

LILY KELLY: I think it is really important. In particular it shouldn’t be an extra cost for them to add a composting service. And there’s typically a transition period where they’re not going to reduce their trash service right away just because they’ve added a composting service. Down the line it may be possible, and ideally that what will happen is that there will be less trash volume so that service will go down and it’ll become less costly to the property manager. But as a safety precaution for preventing any overflow of trash, they should always try adding compost first, and then – as needed – reducing trash systems. So unless it’s mandated, getting that buy-in from them means there has to be at least a cost neutral option for them.

TOS: Now with a mandatory program, you have one more tool at your disposal: enforcement and the threat of fines. Let’s take a listen to Alexa and San Francisco’s strategy on this front…

ALEXA KEILTY: San Francisco has taken a very mild approach when it comes to enforcement. We have implemented some processing fees on buildings, so if we find over fifty percent compostables or recycling in the trash we can put a fifty percent processing charge on those accounts, and we have been doing that. That usually does get the attention of the property managers and they do eventually call and ask for assistance on how they can improve their setup and motivate their tenants.
When we approach these property managers, we don’t start talking about the law and requirements right out of the gate because people don’t well respond to that, so what we try to say is that we’re offering this service, it can greatly help your building. It will also help maintain your building so it’s cleaner, if you get people thinking about how they sort their trash properly – they typically will manage it better so we talk about that. And if they’re still resistant and don’t want to work with us, then we start talking about the law.

EPISODE END

I’m afraid we will have to leave it here for this first episode of our special on organics recycling in multi-story buildings. I hope you enjoyed our journey so far, and the new format. We’ve covered some critical challenges and key factors that come into play today – and for episode two we continue in this vein to discuss tenant participation, bin lining strategies, dealing with demographics and more.

If you have any questions or comments – you can contact us on organicstream.org website, or on twitter – our twitter handle is theorgstream.

On today’s episode, we’re taking a look at the new compost label and quality assurance system designed by the French national network for the collection and recycling of biowaste, Compost Plus. We’re joined by Thomas Colin of Compost Plus who gives us a detailed look at the new system and what it will mean for organics recycling in France. We examine how strict the standards are and how they will be enforced, the reasons for creating them and the issues with the pre-existing standards, how the new system will benefit the French compost industry and the agricultural sector, and the challenges they faced in creating these standards.

We also get an update from Thomas on source separation in France, the new guidance manual developed by Compost Plus and what it will do, and about the new Energy Transition Law – which is currently being reviewed in the Senate and, if passed, will greatly impact the landscape for sustainable organics collection in France.

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Compost Plus and the French Situation

Q: Can you tell me about Compost Plus and what you are up to in France at the moment?

Thomas Colin: Compost Plus is a network of local authorities all involved in composting and separate collection of biowaste in France. There were six members at the beginning in 2009, and now we are sixteen members, which represent around 1.3 million inhabitants. It is important to notice that Compost Plus is a fully independent association and there is no money from private companies.

All our resources are from members’ fees and the goal of the association is to promote the collection and develop separate collection of biowaste in France. We use different methods, like communication. We communicate on separate collection of biowaste in many conferences and meetings all over France, and we organise every two years specific working days on that field, inviting councillors and technical agents. We also do a little bit of lobbying; we’re involved in different regulation working groups, and we’re also members of the European Compost Network – which is a lobbying group of European experts with who we share the same vision about the way to recycle biowaste.

And finally we have a few projects – two of them are finished this year. First is a quality assurance system for composting plants, and compost from biodegradable waste. The second one is a guidebook on separate collection of biowaste, giving the reasons why it should be developed and aiming to spread the best practices. There is one project still in progress; it’s an observatory of local policy, aiming to evaluate the economic and environmental impacts of separate collection of biowaste.

Q: Just to clarify – you work solely with municipalities that source separate their organics?

TC: Yes that’s correct, they are all involved in separated collection of biowaste – all involved in source separation.

Q: Can you give me an overview of the situation in France regarding source separation, and composting standards, before your system came in?

TC: In France the separate collection of biowaste is really unpopular at the moment. There is only maybe three to five percent of the population involved in this type of collection. So it was essential for us to write this guidebook in order to demonstrate the feasibility of this industry.

And in terms of the compost context in France: the French quality standards were not sufficient enough for the agriculture industry. They were asking for stronger external control, more traceability, and clearer specification. For instance, there was no clear difference on packaging requirements biowaste compost and municipal solid waste compost, so this was a fear for operators that the user would be mistaken and would lose confidence in the industry, and finally would prefer not to use compost anymore on their farms. So that’s why Compost Plus found it necessary to build this new quality assurance system. It’s called ASQA – the translation in English would be Soil Improvers Selected and Quality Certified.

Introducing the New Compost Quality Assurance System

Q: When did the work on the quality assurance system start?

TC: The work started two years ago. It was a big collaborative work. All the stakeholders were involved in the project: Compost Plus with its members, but also the ADEME (the National Agency of Energy and Environment) from which we received some funding as well. The Agricultural Chamber of France, which represents all the local agricultural chambers, was also involved. The FNAD, which is the federation representing private companies. A few other associations, like the European Compost Network, and the Composting Farmers of France, and the certification bodies were also involved.

I would like to say that the support of the Agricultural Chamber of France was really important – they brought us a technical as well as political support. Actually two press releases have been co-written and published together, one of them during the last Paris International Agriculture Show. This collaboration was really strategic for the wide acceptance of the project by users, because four years ago the Ministry of Ecology led a similar project of the National Composting Charter, including altogether the urban compost, biowaste, green waste, municipal solid waste compost, but the project eventually collapsed because they didn’t get the confidence of the agricultural industry.

Q: Did the collapse of the previous project make it more difficult for you then to set up this new system and label?

TC: Yes, well, what was difficult was gathering all the stakeholders around the table – the private companies, the agricultural industry, the local authorities, and technical experts as well.

Q: So there are quite a lot of players involved…

TC: That was a lot of players, yes. That was one of the challenges – to get everybody around the table, and finally, to make sure the final document was fully approved.

Q: And that process took two years.

TC: It was two years of work, yes.

Q: The quality assurance system has just launched last year in September, so it’s still very new. And we touched on this already, but can you tell me the reasons for making this new label?

TC: There were a few reasons for making this new label. For users, the priority was to give them more traceability, more control, more warranties, and better quality. For operators, the label allows them to secure their outlet, and makes the market more lasting for the future. As I said, it was also a clear way to mark the difference between biowaste compost and other urban compost like municipal solid waste compost.

Let me say one more thing. In relation to the French context, there was a lack of quality assurance systems in France, actually. Most of the plants use ISO Standards, which focus particularly on management, but nothing on the product quality. So the project was to create this integrated system based on both management and product standards.

Compost Label Criteria: Just How Strict Is It?

Q: How strict is this new system, and the compost label – what criteria did you put in place and what does it cover?

TC: First, the label is open to any plant, public or private, even if it was a public initiative at the beginning, that composts biodegradable waste separately collected. Meaning that municipal solid waste or sewage sludge is not allowed and can’t be part of any product from this label. Compared to what was done before, the label is a lot stricter: there are thirty-six requirements for quality management, environmental management, and product quality.

A big part of the label is inspired by ISO Standards, which means that the quality policy and the procedures are written, the internal communication done, and information is given to operators on the plant. And there are also internal controls done every year to make sure the plant is still in line with the label requirements.

About the product, there is also a threshold for pollutants, in line with the European Eco label for soil improvers, which are stricter than the French national standards, especially on heavy metals content and impurities.

Q: In terms of the operational aspects – what steps will be taken to ensure operational quality in the compost plants, and so on?

TC: Everything has to be recorded: all the composting operations during the process and the composting parameters such as temperature and moisture. Everything has to be recorded and independent certification bodies can ensure that the requirements are respected. At least one external control is done per year, and each product is sampled for external laboratory analysis. There is also internal analysis required, and there is a particular attention given to pollutants that are likely to pass the allowed thresholds. For instance, when a threshold once, the implicated parameters are analysed on all the following batches for one full year. Aside from the agronomic criteria, the organic matter and nitrogen content are analysed on every batch.

Q: Tell me a little bit more about the traceability.

TC: One goal of the label was to bring more traceability, as I said. So, the work on the platform starts by creating input batches. Each batch is followed during the full process from the first stage to the final product, and at every stage of the process, the operators have to know the exact composition of every batch. That means that each kilo of input or output is recorded.

Dealing with Costs and Expectations

Q: Were there any stumbling blocks or issues you had in relation to designing the quality control aspects of the system?

TC: Well, the main challenge was to create a label complying with farmer’s expectations and operator’s limit in the field. So we had to deal as well with the existing rules and practices that sometimes can be hard to change, even just a little bit. So we tried not to revolutionise everything, and to retain most of the best practices already implemented on the field.

One challenge, as well, was to contain the implementation costs of the label. That is why operators have to do part of the control – I spoke about internal control already. So they are doing that internal control and sampling the product. And as the label has some similar requirements to the ISO Standards, we made it fully compatible with them. Thanks to this the implementation costs are reasonable, I would say. Even more for operators already ISO certified, because when the certification body is at the site, it can control parts of the two systems at the same time.

Q: So it ends up not costing the operator as much in that case…

TC: Exactly, so that is why I call this label an integrated label. When you get a contract with a certification body, this label will cost a lot cheaper for operators already ISO certified.

Q: And how has the reaction been so far?

TC: Well for the moment, five plants are doing the work to be certified. Maybe the first certification could open between April or May, but for the moment we haven’t done any communication – we are waiting for that first certification before making any conclusions.

Q: Can you tell me more about who will benefit from this new label, and how?

TC: Those who benefit will be every stakeholder of the industry. Users will benefit from this label because it gives them more traceability, more control and more quality. Operators will benefit because it secures their outlets. Even, I would say, by extension the consumer who is buying food products grown on farms using certified compost, and finally as well it benefits the national authorities by increasing the quality of the national market.

The Question of Biowaste From MBT Plants

Q: We mentioned before the trouble you had to bring all the stakeholders together around the table, but you’ve had a few other issues too, like deciding whether or not to include mechanical biological treatment plants (MBT) plants. Would you care to talk a little more about that?

TC: Well that was one of the questions, whether this label should include the municipal solid waste compost from MBT plants and other sludge sewage compost as well or not. In the end we decided to make this label apart, because Compost Plus members are not familiar with those plants, so it was too complicated for us to imagine creating a label integrating all urban compost. We didn’t want to make a label that confused the user, so it was better for us to separate this initiative.

Q: Was there any pushback on this decision, or did you have any trouble defending it?

TC: No, actually they understood this position and today they are working on their own certification label as well on their side. So we’re happy because our initiative gave them the same idea and hopefully with their label they will try to increase the quality of their compost.

Q: Of course our stance is that source-separation is the best way to go for organics recycling, but are MBT plants popular, or gaining popularity, at the moment in France?

TC: I will say that for the moment the local authorities are waiting for a signal from the national authorities. There are no clear national strategies on how to recycle biowaste. Some local authorities chose to do separate collection of biowaste, others chose to do MBT – but there are few of them, and for the moment most of the local authorities haven’t done anything yet.

Source Separation of Organics & The Energy Transition Law

Q: This is a good transition to talk about what’s happening in France more generally now with organics recycling and source separation. It’s an exciting time at the moment in France – can you tell us more about why?

TC: Well there is a big regulation project called the Energetic Transition Law. In this initial project – supported by the new Minister of Ecology – there is one goal, which is to generalise source separation of biowaste by 2025. So this will be the strong signal I was talking about for local authorities to favour separate collection of biowaste all over the country.

It will also be a really important measure when you think about the international context of climate change and also in contemplation of the next 21COP held in Paris in November (a summit on climate held in Paris at the end of the year), and this measure will be strong contribution from France to reduce our environmental waste impacts. Because we have to know that thirty percent of human methane gas emissions are from landfilling.

So about this Energetic Transition Law – in a few days the Senate will examine the law, and their conclusion should be delivered in the middle of February, so in two weeks, maybe the national situation will totally change.

Q: You’re busy right now talking to the senators and so on about separate collection to spread the word, and this brings me to the source separation guide book (or manual) that you’ve produced (published 5th February). How long has it been in production?

TC: It was also two years work, actually. It’s a book that gathers many, many successful experiences from all around France about source separation of biowaste. There are more than twenty local authorities that have contributed to this guide. And we will officially publish on the 5th of February, so then we will widely spread it to local authorities.

Q: Can you tell me why there is so little source separation in France at the moment, is it just a question of economics or is there much opposition to it?

TC: I wouldn’t say that there is many people against source separation of biowaste in France, but there are still the same people and local authorities defending – and that’s normal – their investment and what they have done. So we can’t say that France is MBT, because some of them are, but some of them are in favour of source separation of biowaste.

Q: Right so there are just a lot of different voices at the moment.

TC: Yeah, it’s a lot of different voices, but most of the people are just waiting for the conclusion.

Q: But municipalities might gain the confidence to start source separation schemes now thanks to this guidance manual?

TC: Yeah that’s true. That is one of the goals of this manual to show the local authorities that source separation of biowaste works everywhere – in urban areas as in rural areas. And yeah, we want to demonstrate that it is working and it’s feasible technically and economically. Because most of the time the argument is that separate collection of biowaste costs more than, for instance, MBT. But this guidebook shows that the twenty local authorities can contribute to this book haven’t got more costs than the national average.

The Future For Compost Plus and France

Q: It will very much depend on what happens with the Energetic Transition Law, but what is the focus for Compost Plus then in the next few years?

TC: Well first of all our next goals will be to make sure the ASQA label is implemented everywhere by local authorities in as many plants as we can. And in relation to the Energetic Transition Law, if the law is in favour of source separation of biowaste, we might have to focus on how we can educate new local authorities in the way of developing source collection of biowaste.

Q: It will be a very busy time, then! And it’s a very busy time for France, too – I’m sure you’re excited for what the future holds.

TC: Yeah, that’s true. The situation can totally change in a few days, and I’m sure this is because of this unclear situation that there is this debate in France. In all other countries in Europe, the national law is clear so there is no debate, and then source separation of biowaste is well developed. As we see in Germany or in Italy, when the national strategy is clear, the local authorities know that they are supported, so it’s easier for them to…to

This week we’re taking a trip down under, to highlight new and exciting recycling program created by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) of New South Wales, Australia. The program, called the Industrial Ecology Business Support Network, aims to facilitate and encourage the reuse of industrial waste materials between medium to large businesses in order to recover recyclable materials from the commercial sector. We speak to Phil Molyneaux of the EPA in New South Wales, who tells us more about the program and how it operates, what it will do for businesses, and how it may be replicated in other countries.

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A Solution For Diverting Business Waste From Landfill

Q: How and why did the Industrial Ecology program come to be?

Phil Molyneaux: It started about six months ago. We were looking at this for a long time, trying to think of creative ways to work with businesses. And we set up a program to work with small to medium sized businesses – so, those who were employing up to two-hundred people, but mainly concentrating on those who were employing twenty people in their business, so the small businesses. And they’re notoriously contact; there’s an enormous number of them in New South Wales – there’s something like six hundred and fifty thousand of those in New South Wales alone. There’s a lot of small businesses. And we thought we would like a program looking at opportunities to work with larger businesses as well. And that was where the Industrial Ecology, or the Industrial Symbiosis program came about.

Q: Can you give our audience more on an idea of what exactly is the program, and how it runs?

PM: The program is about…we’re paying for facilitators who have a background and an understanding of local areas to work with local businesses and help local businesses to fin creative solutions for their waste. So what we’re doing is we’re paying for a person, called a facilitator, to work in a local area, and we split the state up into six regions – relatively arbitrary regions – and we’re working with the facilitators, providing funding and providing assistance to them to work with local businesses.

So what they would do is they would hold meetings in their regions and identify businesses that want to work to reduce their cost of waste disposal. In New South Wales there’s a levy on materials going to landfill; the government tries to encourage recycling, and one way of doing that is to put a levy on the tonnes of material going into landfill, and that is about one hundred and twenty dollars per tonne – and then the waste industry themselves have a gate fee. So, someone estimated that in Sidney, and the capital cities, the cost of putting material into landfill is something in the order of about three hundred and fifty dollars a tonne, with transport costs included.

That means it’s quite expensive to put material into landfill, but some businesses feel that that’s just the cost of doing business, and they’ll keep doing it. But what we’re trying to say is that the New South Wales government is working with businesses to try to encourage them to recycle that material, and therefore avoid much of that cost of disposal.

Q: What’s the timeline of the project – how long are you planning for it to go on for?

PM: We would like to keep it going for four years. We’re sort of half way, or a third of the way through the first year of the program. Our hope is to be able to suggest to the facilitators we’re working with – that we’ve trained and encouraged and supported – and encourage them to continue to do this work themselves, because they will have had the skills and experience, and see that there’s an opportunity for them to make money.

One of the people who is advising us in this program has said that he’s been doing industrial ecology, or industrial symbiosis, for a number of years himself and he says to businesses: “I can find a way to save you a hundred thousand dollars a year on your waste bill, are you prepared to pay me half of that?” And a number of companies have said to him, “Yes, sure we can do that”. So, at the end of the financial year he gets his check for fifty thousand dollars and is quite happy.

And that’s where we think a number of these people who have been trained in these regions – with skills and connections in those regions…because it’s local regions. We’re such a big state that there isn’t the money to move this waste from one section of New South Wales to another. It’s best if the local region deals with that waste in the best way – and it’s relatively expensive to transport these materials: food waste is heavy, timber waste is really quite heavy.

The Businesses And Organisations Participating.

Q: What kind of organisations or businesses are you looking to work with, and what qualities to the facilitators need to have?

PM: There are criteria, and we were very careful when we gave the original grants out. We were looking at companies that had a track record of working with local businesses; innovative in looking at recycling options; skills in leadership – we’re looking for a particular type of person who’s going to be the facilitator, and that person has to have a certain amount of charm, a bit of an ability to hold meetings and to network with people, and to be persistent.

So a lot of the time, how they’ll go about it is they’ll have a meeting in one of the small cities around the state. They’ll talk a bit about the idea of recycling and mention a couple of success stories of local businesses that are recovering, say, timber pallets or food waste in a region, and they’ll perhaps get one of the people doing this to talk. And they’ll say, “can we sit down and chat with you about that idea”. And they’ll give them a cup of coffee, get them to come back after a few minutes of networking, and they basically sit down with all the people interested in timber waste sitting down at one table, and the people interested in food waste or recycling plastic or metals and the like, sit down at separate tables and network together.

Then, the facilitator will try and gather that information and try to encourage those people that have been networking – someone who has food waste and wants to find someone who can use that food waste (maybe someone who is a local composter, or someone who has a farm and can take that food waste and it’s lawful for them to take that food waste), and then we assist those two to get together. And sometimes it’s just a case that they’re just down the street from each other, and they didn’t realise that both existed, or both had that need. Or, we need to organise some sort of transport between them. So it’s a case of negotiating, and it really takes someone with some skills and persistence: people are busy, people have always wanted to do this, but they’ve just never had someone to facilitate that connection.

Q: So the want is there, we just need to make it happen…

PM: That’s exactly right.

Goals and Outcomes: What Impact Will Industrial Ecology Have?

Q: Can you tell me then what are the core outcomes expected of the program?

PM: Good comment. Well, we’re going to invest four million dollars over the four years of the program, and we would like to see (and we’ve got some numbers to indicate this is quite possible) a return of something like twenty one million dollars in initial income or savings for the community. We’d like to target one hundred and sixty thousand tonnes of landfill diversion. We’re well on the way – of the first four months of the program, we’ve certainly seen a significant targeting of several thousand tonnes of material.

Q: What is the business case for the program?

PM: Well, the business case is that idea that there is a saving for business; there is a responsibility in government to reduce the amount of material that is being sent to landfill; there is a responsibility in government to reduce litter and waste, and to encourage business to be more efficient and competitive in an international market. And obviously, the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority has a desire and a responsibility to stop productive material from being wasted, and see that material return to the proactive economy – that’s our chief objective. But we also see that it’s going to be of benefit to business efficiency in the economy. And we’re already seeing benefits in our society of a cleaner environment, and environment where there’s less litter, less material going to landfill. Even though we have a large area, landfill space is very valuable, particularly in the cities that land can be sold and used very well if it’s not being used for a landfill.

Q: Have you any notion on how businesses are taking to the program so far? Is it popular, or are there any challenges to getting them interested?

PM: I think it’s like a lot of things with the environment and with businesses, you know – it’s always tough for businesses to keep their heads about water and keep going. Everyone’s trying to be more competitive and everyone’s trying to save some money. They often don’t consider their waste as a way of saving money; they often think that waste is just something they need to get out of the way so that they can get on with the business of doing business. So, they accept that waste is a cost of doing business, and what we like to say to them is: well, maybe we can pull this area apart a little bit, have a look at this idea, and maybe there’s significant saving in reducing the amount of material going to landfill.

And then the other benefit we’ve found with a number of companies is…you know, we started on this track a couple of years ago, thinking that were just going to save money. But the bosses have come back to us and said they’re really excited because staff are more engaged and interested. We’re doing something in our business that we haven’t done before: we’re recycling at work and doing the things we’ve been regularly doing at home with our bins. We separate our dry recyclables at home, some have got compost bins, some have worm farms… and they’re saying, “It’s really exciting, we’re doing something different at work!” And they’re motivated.

One company came to us and said to us that they were just so excited that it significantly reduced staff turnover, and to him that saving is just amazing because his staff were continually leaving. Not because there wasn’t anything bad about the company, but it just wasn’t really interesting. He’s saying, “Now we’ve got a much more interesting environment, my staff are engaged. We’re almost got to zero waste…they’re very excited, they’re very keen to come to work and try something different”.

Changing Hearts & Minds: Challenges Along The Way

Q: What kind of issues or challenges have you had so far, and how are you overcoming them?

PM: The thing that’s tricky is just the perception that businesses have: “You’re asking me to do something about my waste, but I’m asking my staff to change their habits. This could be a little bit more expensive that just sending the material to landfill…” And we’re trying to say to them, “Look, why don’t you just try that?” So, we’ve been tackling that by encouraging managers and facilitators to talk with the staff, and to look at the fact that they are recycling at home; they’ve been asked for a number of years by the New South Wales government to recycle material in their municipal bins, and they’ve been doing that very successfully. And we point to the real cost savings, and just encourage people to look at this as a social responsibility.

A number of companies respond to that. Not all – but there’s a certain politics of envy, when someone’s done it well other companies come along and say, “well, I think we could have a go at that”. And it’s always good to see someone who’s been successful in this area and likes to get up and say, “Well, we did this. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t all that hard, and we had a lot of fun on the way.” And a number of companies get up and say that.

Q: And I suppose the landfill levy that you have has really helped in getting businesses on board?

PM: It has. It’s certainly a driver in New South Wales. The levy operates in the major cities – in the country areas the levy doesn’t operate all that much. But in the cities, another big driver is the cost of transport, whereas in country areas you don’t have that cost of travelling around the city and spending time in clogged arteries.

In country areas the cost of doing things are significantly reduced, but there may not be as many opportunities. So, that’s what we’re finding the challenge is in country areas. They don’t have the population, they don’t have the number of reuse opportunities, but then again they don’t have the costs that are associated with a city operation.

Q: I see, so that is a bit trickier then to work with?

PM: It is a bit tricky, but what we’re arguing is that there are opportunities in both situations. There are a number of companies that are prepared to work, because they’ve got lower overheads in country areas, land is not as expensive. They want to keep staff, they’re looking at opportunities to reduce their costs, and recycling is a reasonable option.

Q: And looking at the future now briefly, what’s the long-term vision for the EPA in New South Wales after the completion of the program?

PM: We’re doing work on a succession plan for this. Basically, instead of supplying the fishing line, we’ve decided to go with the model of teaching people how to fish. And we’ve really worked at encouraging, with our facilitators, to take up this challenge, and to work with local people in their community; develop strong connections in their community, and look for local solutions.

Industrial Ecology – Can We Take It Globally?

Q: How do you think this program could be replicated in other countries around the world – would it be vastly different in another context?

PM: Yeah, I think it would. We’ve shamelessly borrowed a program from the UK that’s been highly successful: the National Symbiosis Program, or NISP. And we feel that it’s a simple, transferable model. A number of people we’ve spoken to in the UK have given us an indication of how they’ve done it; we’ve spoken to a number of people who have visited the UK. And what they basically do is what we’ve tried to apply, that is: you talk with a number of businesses in a local community, you try and identify opportunities, and you make sure you work with the willing – don’t try and drive people to work with you if they don’t want to do that – and, you look at creative opportunities with those willing people.

You just persist with those people and look for ways to do it. Sometimes it’s fairly tenuous or timorous and takes a little bit of time for that to work out. But once people start to see that this is possible to do, and there’s an opportunity to do it, they start to realise that this is quite good.

We had a meeting with our team facilitators the other day, and several of them said, “Do you know, I didn’t know how we were going to do this. I was a bit scared at the start. But you know, there’s some great opportunities out there – and I’m having a lot of fun!”

Q: Well that I’m sure is a big plus!

PM: It is! It is.

Creating Jobs & Building Sustainable Societies.

Q: Often times recycling initiatives have a great opportunity to create jobs. With this program, can you see jobs being created for local communities or?

PM: Look, certainly. I think there are opportunities to create jobs, but there’s probably more opportunities to save jobs from leaving an area. Obviously as technology changes, businesses tend to move people out of dangerous jobs and to reduce the workload, and obviously increased mechanisation has reduced the number of jobs. A way to meet that challenge is to provide better jobs, safer jobs. And there are some great jobs in recycling and opportunities in recovery. There are some estimates of quite significant savings in local areas through people who will recycle the material rather than see it go to landfill, and see that material return to the productive economy, rather than see it just sitting in a landfill.

Q: In relation to the Industrial Ecology program, do you see any opportunities that it could bring to empower disadvantaged groups in society?

PM: It’s a good question, and it’s interesting to see that there are opportunities to work in community groups. One of the regions is working with refugees and supplying them with organic material so that they’re growing their own food in a community situation, and that’s very exciting. So, there are some opportunities – a number of organisations are working with them at the moment and looking at opportunities to work in that space.

We find that, as with in all communities, a lot of disadvantaged groups move towards the lower cost areas and that often tends to be outside the cities, and that’s where a lot of recycling opportunities might be. And it’s an opportunity work; it’s certainly an opportunity where some of the disabled groups have thought, “well, let’s use staff to do that”, and a number of disabled groups are using leftover timber from manufacturing to make items.

It’s got to be thought-through very carefully, and there are some opportunities there if it’s done well.

Q: Do you have any final words about the program or to businesses out there who might be interested in becoming part of something like this?

PM: I think the idea is looking. Just go out the back of your building or their manufacturing site, or their business, and look over the fence and see if there’s somebody that could use something that you’re throwing away. So have a look what’s in your bin, and have a look at what other people are using. There are a number of companies that have said, “I didn’t realise that people were buying these boxes that I’m throwing away”, or, “Someone could use these plastic bags that I’ve just been putting in the bin”. And there’s some great opportunities to share, and to see waste as a resource rather than something that needs to be thrown away.

This week we speak with Jo Zientek, Deputy Director of the Environmental Services Department at the City of San Jose, California, about their new high solids anaerobic digestion/composting and biogas facility. We take a retrospective look at the city’s achievement in order to learn about their experiences, their challenges and successes in the development and operation of the facility. We discuss the permitting process, feedstock contract awards, the advantages of public/private partnerships, and the request for proposal process in order to highlight typical key success factors and pitfalls to expect with such a project.

In December 2013, Zero Waste Energy Development Company LLC (ZWEDC) opened the first large-scale commercial dry fermentation anaerobic digestion facility in the United States. With the goal of taking organics recovery to the next level, ZWEDC desired not only to compost organics but also to extract its energy value. For more information, visit their website.

Republic Services provides innovative Wet/Dry collection services to all businesses in the City of San José. The Wet/Dry system has nearly tripled the business recycling rate from 25 to over 70 percent since July 2012! All businesses receive wet collection service which includes organics collection such as food waste and food contaminated paper products. Dry waste includes recyclables and everything else. The materials are processed at the Newby Island Resource Recovery Park’s Recyclery. For more information, visit their website.

In the show, we mention two upcoming events that are on our radar this week:

History & Project Journey of the Anaerobic Digestion Facility

Q: Tell me about the facility in San Jose and how it’s operating at the moment?

Jo Zientek: The facility, which we just commissioned in November 2013, takes the organic waste from our businesses in San Jose. San Jose is a big city; we’re the third largest in California and the tenth largest in the United States, and we have about eight thousand businesses in San Jose. In 2012, we implemented a brand new business recycling program, and all our businesses are required to participate. Prior to that, businesses could select their own hauler and their own recycling service, but we weren’t getting a lot of good recycling out of our business community. So we went to a new system that all businesses are required to participate in, but that new system allowed us to have sufficient feedstock to open two big, high-tech waste processing facilities to process the waste, and one is this zero waste, dry anaerobic digestion facility.

The facility takes organic waste – some is direct hauled from businesses, and others is first processed by another recycling facility, and the organic waste comes out of it. The facility, which is phase-one, can accept about ninety thousand tons a year, and it’s permitted to add two more ninety thousand tons phases for a total of two hundred and seventy thousand tons a year. And we’re working on the owner of the facility on ways we can help jump-start that expansion now.

The facility has sixteen digester tunnels now and each is capable of generating about 1.6 megawatts of energy. The facility is interesting, because there’s a lot of anaerobic digestion facilities in the world – almost all are wet systems, and this facility is unique because it’s dry. We don’t need that much water in, and we don’t need to deal with pumping the water out to make a more usable product. And it’s fully enclosed, so that allows it to be next to highly populated urban areas, because there are obviously odours associated with anaerobic digestion. Also, in-vessel composting tunnels (after the organic waste is inoculated with the digestate and goes through the twenty-one day process), then the material is moved to composting tunnels to continue curing, and that’s also inside.

So, this initial ninety thousand tons phase is commercial waste, but we are looking at potentially moving residential organics to that facility – a lot of which we’re not collecting now. And then also other jurisdictions in Silicone valley can also bring their material here.

Q: For our audience who’d like to learn more about positioning/choosing this type of technology in the AD sphere, please refer to Lesson 7 of our online course (which will be released soon). And can you talk us through the beginning of the project, in terms of the Request For Proposal process especially: how did you get it off the ground?

JZ: It was actually a couple of different efforts that came together. It was an opportunistic project, I’m not sure if everything hadn’t come together quite as it did, we would have been able to get this first project off the ground, but certainly subsequent projects and the expansion will be much easier than the first project. But it began at the end of the year 2007 when our Mayor adopted a Green Vision that was the city’s economic development strategy. And certainly several cities in North America and I assume Europe too had a green technology spin to their economic development strategies as we were all grappling with recession and the economic downturn taking place.

But in San Jose, ours was called the Green Vision, and it included some really aggressive goals to reduce water and increase renewable energy, increase energy efficiency, clean vehicles, trees, trails – those kinds of stretch goals to get our city more sustainable by the year 2022, and two of those goals came into play for this project were adopted by our council at the end of 2007 were increasing renewable energy in San Jose, and getting to zero waste. They were the two goals in that ten-goal Green Vision.

So, we immediately had interest from one of our local haulers. The Bay Area is a little unique than other cities because we tend to have a lot of very independent, very creative local recyclers and haulers – not as many large, corporate, multinational haulers that are in other cities in the United States. And one of them said that they were interested in doing a renewable energy park. They wanted to do it on city land, and we have about two-thousand acres in the southern tip of San Francisco Bay that’s been our buffer lands, because we operate a large, regional wastewater treatment facility that serves San Jose and other cities in Silicone Valley, and we were looking at ways – concurrent with this project – that we can dry our biosolids that would help mitigate odour and get the process done faster and liberate some of that land that we’ve been holding as buffer land.

So this proposal that came unsolicited after the Mayor’s Green Vision was adopted, was to use the buffer land for this project and potentially some other renewable energy projects. One challenge we had with this buffer land was that it was on an old, closed landfill that we knew very little about. I joke that the city probably bought it in a bar in the nineteen hundreds, and there wasn’t a lot of history on it, no one knew exactly what was in the landfill. The benefit, though, was the landfill was old so there’d been a lot of settling already done and it hadn’t been used for several decades. The other odd thing about this land is that although it was in the middle of Silicone Valley, it had no utility infrastructure to it. So although it was across the street from our wastewater plant, it had no sewer infrastructure, no power, no water, and no run-off system set up on it.

Q: So you had to start from scratch here…

JZ: Yes. It was almost a green field in the middle of Silicone Valley, and it was a very difficult site to develop just from the issue of the environmental sensitivity, plus it was on a closed landfill. In order to make sure anyone who was interested in looking at that site as projects for the green vision, we actually ended up doing a request for information to open up the opportunity, but we didn’t get any other project interest except this project from one of our current, privately owned recycling haulers.

So that was going on, and we ended up taking their official request for interest, and ended up a due diligent process to see if we could begin this project. And then concurrent to that, we had been planning for several years to do a complete, evolutionary change to our commercial solid waste system. As I’ve mentioned before, anyone could pick their own hauler, but the problem with that is that they could lose a customer in thirty days – the city ordinance allowed them to get out of an existing hauler contract with thirty days notice. And the challenge with that is that haulers can’t finance infrastructure development to recycle without a guaranteed customer base and revenue stream, because as you know these facilities are very expensive.

So, unlike our residential system where we had three big recycling facilities in San Jose set up to serve our residential customers, there was no infrastructure investment to serve our commercial customers in the last twenty years. So we decided to start the process of looking at making the system exclusive. It was a very, very long process; in the state of California, if you make a system or hauling contract exclusive, you have to give all the current haulers a seven year notice. So we did that. We did extensive stakeholder outreach, both with the hauling community and the customers. We had customers from everything from mom and pop restaurants and small service shops to Adobe and EBay and Cisco – so just a huge range of customers here in San Jose.

Success in Changing The Waste Hauling System

Q: And when you were interviewing all the commercial businesses, what kind of things were you asking?

JZ: We asked how was their existing service; if we were to make the system exclusive, what things did they want to see, what things did they not want to see. And then we also provided some information on how the current system is really inefficient – not only was it not recycling that much, all the haulers that collected from commercial businesses would basically go to every street every day because there was no routing efficiency, so it was creating a lot of issues.

And in some respects (especially for small or medium sized businesses), they really weren’t getting rates that were that inexpensive because there was no efficiencies captured in the system, and the small businesses didn’t really have as much leverage when it came to bargaining for their rates as larger businesses did. So, it was really small and medium sized probably received the largest benefit. And then the larger businesses – because especially high tech firms, they have such a strong sustainability component and that’s important to their customers.

So we got enough support to move forward, and that was a big step for us, because other cities have tried to go from a non-exclusive to exclusive system for the very same reasons, and had more of a challenge. I think in the pacific north-west, including Portland, as of yet hasn’t been able to convince communities to be willing to give up that kind of decision making power to do an exclusive system.

Q: That’s a shame, but perhaps what happened in San Jose has been a bit of an inspiration or an example.

JZ: Yeah, and it has been. Los Angeles was able to use ours as an example and I think just four months ago was able to get their council to approve a district system. New York City and San Diego is also looking at our system, so we’ve definitely been able to show we can get the high diversion, and I think we’re one of the – if not the highest diverting commercial system in the country right now, because all the waste no longer goes to landfill: it’s either direct hauled to the Zero Waste facility if it’s clean enough, or it goes first to a recycling facility near the Zero Waste facility for pre-processing and then the organic stream goes to Zero Waste.

So, concurrently to that, we developed this whole request for proposals process for our commercial system. Zero Waste was already doing their due diligence on the site to build the facility, which they could use for residential or commercial organics. But they did end up bidding on the project to take commercial waste. So, the opportunity of being able to submit a bid for our commercial organics – as they were looking at doing their du diligence on the side and economics – obviously was a huge lift for the project, because it meant they had the possibility of having a guaranteed feedstock if they were to build the facility. So even though they were happening on parallel tracks, that helped.

So we ended up awarding the collection and non-organics processing contract to republic services, which used to be Allied and VFI. And the organic portion went to Zero Waste (the Zero Waste Energy Development Company), so that gave them the feedstock to build the facility.

Developing The Anaerobic Digestion Facility: The City’s Role

Q: How did the partnership with San Jose city shape the process, and in what ways did it speed the development of the facility along?

JZ: So to bring that closed landfill site up to being able to be built upon (which was an extremely expensive proposition for Zero Waste), what the city did to help share the risk a little bit (and also benefit from this) is that we gave them credit. I think it’s a thirty year lease with a ten year extension option, and they don’t have to pay rent; they get credit each year against the cost they had to spend just to bring this site up to a developal condition, which is about eleven million dollars. So, bringing the power and the sewer and the water; officially closing the state of California ; doing the storm water run off system…those costs were roughly eleven million dollars, and so they have a rent they have to pay to us, but they get to the eleven million dollars and don’t have to start paying us until that eleven million dollars is paid off.

And we benefitted from that, because we up-sized some of the infrastructure that Zero Waste put in, so if we wanted to do additional development in the area, the city could do that. So, we paid for that differential and that was a benefit – plus, if they ever leave, we get a site that’s much easier to develop that it would have been prior to that.

And the other thing we did, which was very unusual for the city (and I worked on this lease with our economic development department – is that the lease they have to the city means that instead of them just paying us a flat rate, once that eleven million dollars is paid off, Zero Waste is going to pay us four dollars in change for every ton of organics that goes into the facility. And that’s unique for us: it helps the city organisation have some skin in the game in their success. So, completing that expansion of an addition two ninety-thousand tons means the city has an opportunity to make more money. So it kind of helps get my own organisation managing up and, if you will, have some skin in that game to want Zero Waste to be successful and expand.

Q: Very good approach!

JZ: Yeah, and now, to fund the expansion, California is using some cap-and-trade funds to help AD facilities, and we are looking at that expansion as maybe one of the first projects to use California’s new funding source for these types of projects. And the benefit, obviously, of the Zero Waste project is that it’s shovel-ready, so it makes it hopefully very competitive for this round of state financing because we have the permits, and we have the plans, and it’s very, very difficult to be in that position unless you started four years ago!

So, we’re hoping phase two and phase three are just much simpler projects.

Q: When it comes to financing for the facility itself – it is quite a unique project – was it easier for it to get capital financing at the start due to the secured feedstocks and the partnership with the city?

JZ: That helped. Some of the funding sources, (i.e. the California Pollution Control Financing Authority), I don’t think they’re quite as designed for emerging technology. And because this first phase was so new, I think the partners of the Zero Waste Energy Development Company really had to bring their unique financing relationships that they already had to the table. They were also able to get some Federal money – I think it’s the Department of Treasury 1605 fund tax credit money. But I don’t think they could count on typical financing that’s available for tried and true technology.

Because of their position – they have done a lot of innovative recycling facilities. Another one in San Jose that processes all our waste from our multi-family housing apartments. They were able to leverage some relationships that they already had, but I’m not sure it would be as easy for a company that didn’t have their relationship to start this one. That being said, we built the first on in California, so the second one – now that banks and regulators can tough and feel and hug this one – is going to be infinitely easier than this first one.

So, I think the next one – wherever it is – is just going to be easier and maybe would have an easier time getting access to typical financing vehicles that these companies use.

Struggles With Permitting

Q: Let’s talk more about the permitting process itself and the city’s role – what was it like, and was there any struggles you faced?

JZ: The onus was on the developers, Zero Waste, to get the two permits, but there were some issues the city had to work through. And the thing that made this project tricky was that it was on a closed landfill in an environmentally sensitive area, so that in and of itself took a long time to resolve. And we had to come up with the monitoring plans; so we have testing wells to make sure there’s no contamination in the groundwater, and the whole site is at sea level next to the sea, so infiltration underground is an issue. So, Zero Waste now does that on behalf of us. And that required a solid waste facility permit from the state.

Because the state had never seen or touched a dry AD facility like this, it was complicated. I think the state ended up subcontracting with a firm on the east coast to evaluate the permit. Some of the designs we got, because it was a German technology, came to us in German and I think they had translating issues. Even the facility now, some of the software that monitors the environment for the microbes still reports in German and know they have to use Google Translate to translate it! But everything is to keep those microbes happy.

So that was challenging, and there were a lot of questions, and a lot of them had to be answered by the German technology firm and then translated back to English. So that was challenging and that process ended up taking two years to get the permits done. And then the building permit itself, which the city issues…so, the state issues the solid waste permit, and the building permit is issued by the city. But I know we had extensive back and forth which required hands-on meeting with a lot of city officials, Zero Waste, and the contractor to figure out whether those composting cells, where the anaerobic digestion was actually taking place for twenty-one days, had to be fit for human habitation or not, and that had a significant difference on how they were constructed. So that took months and months to work through.

So again, the second facility will just be so much easier than this one. It was a lot of work and a lot of educating everybody on what this was, and what it wasn’t, and it was big effort.

Q: Would you have any words of advice on this whole topic for those our there who are now thinking of starting the next one?

JZ: I think definitely being able to do a demonstration phase. If your permitting agency is just not familiar with it, getting a demonstration project is probably simpler than starting off with a commercial scale facility like we did. It just requires a lot of determination, and getting your organisation, especially your government organisation comfortable with taking thoughtful risk I think is just a shift that you have to make.

You know, we’re working on another demonstration project with a different German technology on biosolids. And the first technology provider went bankrupt so we had to find another one who also ended up being a German company. But getting your organisation comfortable and just that that’s normal – if you’re looking at doing cutting edge things, these companies will go bankrupt, they will take a year or two to permit even a demonstration project. So just make that part of the culture, because that’s just how it is when you try to do new things in this space.

Californian Policy: How Can It Help Other Organics Recycling Facilities?

Q: In terms on policy, is there anything you would like to see changed or brought in to help make the development and running of similar MSW AD and composting facilities easier?

JZ: Certainly at the regulatory level, getting a unified approach to how to permit these facilities, so each jurisdiction isn’t stuck starting from scratch with each similar facility. So, we had been working with the state of California on a standard EIR process for different organic technology types, like anaerobic digestion, and this is very helpful because it’s just too difficult for cities and jurisdiction’s that want to build these things from scratch.

Getting really clear permitting direction from the regulatory agency including, you know – in California the water and the solid waste aren’t in the same organisation on the state level, but the facility needs permits from both those arms, and getting them to work together and come up with a more uniform approach will help. If it’s known what the path is to get the permits, it’s just easier and more likely that both the private sector partner and the government agency will take the risk. But it’s the unknown – where you don’t know if you’re just going to be spinning for years and years trying to figure out what the permitting path is, it just doesn’t make the risk worth it.

So being able to have a uniform approach for the different types of facilities throughout the state I think would really help mitigate the risk. I think California is trying to do that with anaerobic digestion facilities, and we’ve been part of that process on the state level.

Q: It can be very tricky dealing with all the regulatory bodies and the permitting process of different agencies – we get stuck into this topic in Lesson 5 of our course, and talk about the best strategies you can use to get your project off the ground. So those who might be interested, head on over to the course section of our site and take a look.

Q: And we’re running out of time now, so the last section, I’d like to get your words of advice for other cities out there looking into doing something similar – maybe some tips on strategy?

JZ: Yeah, I think it’s very important for the public-private partnerships for to get private sector partners to approach you, is to have some well-publicised successes that show your city is wiling to stick it out and be successful. So even if it’s a demonstration project, just taking that first step on a smaller project and then publicising the success of it, because it’s just such a big investment for a private sector partner, and they want to make sure that you have a track record. So, doing some smaller projects and then getting the word out that you mean business, that you’re in it for the long haul, and you’ve successfully implemented both private sector and granting agencies.

Because a lot of times these projects, including the gasification project that I’m talking about, we actually get funding for that through the state or federal grants, so it just really helps to do some smaller projects and being successful – both marketing yourself to a granting agency and a private sector partner.

We’ve really found it helpful to have on-hand meetings and getting everyone in a room when we discuss the permitting issues. Especially with the new project: a regulatory agency or a staff person in some permitting agency hears one thing, and then maybe comes out with a ruling that was based on a conclusion they decided that wasn’t accurate. Like, this issue we had with having to make the cells where the organic material spent twenty-one days with the microbes fit for human habitation, even though the only time people were in them was to put material in them – and then they sealed them up. And it really helped talking through it – face-to-face talking through, because the conclusions that were instantly or immediately drawn about what it was lead to an extremely difficult permitting hurdle to overcome. So just sitting them down and walking them through it really helped. And it was just a lot of that type of meetings we had to do to walk people through and get them over the conclusions they initially drew, which weren’t accurate.

In this episode we navigate the complex and sometimes confusing world of compostable plastics, addressing the current issues and main questions on this topic. What is compostable as opposed to biodegradable, and why does it matter? What standards and testing protocols exist for compostable plastics and are they in line with what composters are experiencing on the ground? What are the pressing issues that composters have in dealing with these plastics, and how can we improve compostable plastic labelling in order to safeguard against contamination of other plastics? We pose these questions to our two guests: Chair of the Working Group on Biological Treatment of Waste at the International Solid Waste Association and member of the Italian Compost Association (CIC), Marco Ricci (Italy), and waste diversion expert Hilary Near (California, USA).

Understanding COMPOSTABLE PLASTICS

Q: There are a lot of different types of plastics out there all with slightly different names and properties and it can get quite confusing. Let’s help our audience understand the focus on compostable plastics here, as opposed to biodegradable. Marco, can you give us a definition and clarification on what compostable plastic is, compared to the other types?

Marco Ricci: A compostable plastic is a plastic that is in some way compatible with the composting process, while a biodegradable plastic may degrade under microorganism effect but is not compostable. Normally compostability has a set of requirements which is larger than the one of biodegradability. This is the basic definition. That’s why many experts in this field and also a lot of NGOs started to talk about compostable plastics since about ten, twelve years ago so to avoid any misunderstanding.

Q: So there’s a larger set of requirements needed to be passed for a plastic to be deemed compostable. Hillary Near, do you agree with this definition?

Hilary Near: Yes and I do a lot of communication around behaviour change and with businesses who are making these choices, and I try and simplify it and explain that compostable has a time frame and environment attached to the word, whereas biodegradable doesn’t have any criteria really, and so anything can be biodegradable, including your leather shoe.

Our current STANDARDS and ASTM REVISIONS

Q: Let’s talk about the requirements and standards that are in place at the moment for compostable plastics. Marco, can you tell us what principle standards exist in Europe right now?

MR: The main standard is the EN 13432 standard of the year 2000, and it’s a standard for certifying compostable plastic. The standard has four requirements, which are: biodegradation of plastic in a definite amount of time and to a specific amount of matter; disintegration, which means we must non-distinguishable fragments in a definite period of time; toxicity – the absence of eco- toxicity in finished compost; and safety requirements. So, the material or compost that is obtained by using these plastics that are in-line with the standard must sustain plant growth. So they are the four requirements.

Q: This European standard is currently known as the most demanding and we strongly recommend complying with this in Lesson 4 of our video course. In the US we have the ASTM standard – which lays out similar criteria for compostability, but there are differences between the two. The ASTM standards are now being revised to be more in line with the European Standard, and also to sync better with the reality on the ground for compost site operators. Hilary, can you give us more information on what is happening with the changes?

HN: Currently the guideline is the lab testing, so there are no field testing protocols, but to your point earlier, the ASTM is working to revise the disintegration test method with two time and temperature profiles that are hopefully going to better replicate the actual field composting conditions of the products that they’re exposed to.

The reality is that the composting process is a very unique and varied process, and it’s very diverse across the United States in all the composting facilities that are accepting this material. So in order to hopefully reflect that and also address any operational impacts of these products on commercial compost facilities, the ASTM is working to revise that and to reflect better the commercial composting facilities situation.

I’m not on that working group, but many of the members who are also on the US Composting Council Task Force on compostable plastics are represented in that ASTM working group. We’ve worked with at least four compost facilities who represent more of an open windrow and a longer with lower temperatures, and then the second time and temperature profile is a shorter process with higher temperatures. So those are hoping to replicate better an aerated static pile and an open windrow composting process. And then apply those eventually to the ASTM standard to give guidelines for which products to work in which facilities.

Q: So at the moment the standards and testing protocols aren’t really in line with what composters are experiencing on the ground?

HN: Well there are a lot of questions about that currently, and that’s what the US Composting Council Task Force is hoping to reconcile and harmonise the lab with the field experience, as it sounds like the Italians are doing as well, given their extensive distribution of some compostable plastic products. So, we are also addressing that concern by reworking the ASTM method, but other composters have had different experiences. Some composters see different products possible remaining after their process, and some don’t. So it’s really anecdotal right now and there are only several composters who are testing products individually in their processes.

Q: And apart from the field testing aspect, are there any other differences between the standards worth mentioning, and are they being revised as well?

MR: Well, this is a good confrontation because as far as I remember, one main difference between the European standard and the ASTM standard is the requirement for biodegradability. If I remember correctly, the European standard requests a biodegradation – the conversion of the organic matter to CO2 – of ninety percent in about ninety days. While, if I’m not wrong, the ASTM standards has a lower requirement of about sixty percent. Maybe Hilary can confirm or correct me on that?

HN: I’m more familiar with the field testing situation, but that portion is not being revised. But I know that the time frame is one hundred and eighty days, and it does have less stringent sieve protocols for the resulting material that can be remaining after the lab testing.

Discussing Testing Protocols

Q: Marco, can you tell us what testing protocols are out there at the moment in Europe, and how effective they are?

MR: There are three main protocols for testing and assessing compostability in Europe. All of them refer to the European standard, obviously. The first one is the Vincotte standard – it’s probably the most well-known one. Then we have the German DIN standard. And the third standard is the one which was created in Italy, and it’s the compostable CIC standard. CIC is the Italian Composting and Biogas Association.

Obviously they have to satisfy the same criteria at the EU level, but there are some differences in the testing. For example, biodegradability and disintegration is tested by the Italian standard on a full-scale plant. So we’re running our tests in existing composting plants, while other standards normally rely on lab testing – so, on pilot scale plants. This was one of our decisions to be sure that the material effectively biodegrades and disintegrates when we are confronted with industrial plants.

Q: There is no call to make any revisions to them?

MR: Actually, our tests are strict enough, so we’re not demanding for stricter tests. Normally we verify that ninety percent biodegradation happens in about ninety days, which is a timeframe that complies with the standards we have in Italy for getting a mature compost – in an industrial plant, obviously. We’re talking about industrial plants, not about home or community composting.

Q: Can you tell me then what you hear from compost site operators in relation to the standards or any issues they might have in this area – what’s been their experience?

MR: We have to first make a distinction: the most common

compostable plastic to be found in Europe are bio-bags – bags used on purpose for separate collection of biowaste, and especially for food waste. This is a long-standing tradition of about twenty years. The first bio-bags made of compostable plastics were put on the market in the mid-nineties I would say. So this is one kind of item, and then we have other kinds of items. In any case, in countries such as Italy, Spain or the UK where this kind of bioplastic is very well known, compostable plastics do not pose any problem to the industrial plants.

The complaints are that, first of all, consumers sometimes misuse traditional plastics, or so-called biodegradable plastics, and use then incorrectly for separating and delivering biowaste. The other complaint is that there are some fake bioplastics on the markets, and these are creating some problems. Even though normally where separate collection is done on the curbside – or door-to-door – theses kinds of effects are of minor problems because the total amount of non-compostables that reach a composting plant are well below five percent in weight.

It might be different if we have rigid compostable plastics – so, rigid packaging. In that case, some composting facilities need to somehow restructure their process chain, since they’ve been planned for treating biowaste, and suddenly other kinds of waste items arrive. So, maybe they need some kind of shredding or sorting, and so on.

GREENWASHING and CONTAMINATION – the Composter’s Experience

Q: If one of the biggest issues is that non-compostable plastics are entering the stream, I’m sure this makes it very difficult to identify and sort compostable plastics from other types of plastics at a site?

MR: Yes, it is challenging, especially because it’s challenging anyway to sort out a bag at a composting plant. There is actually in my opinion (and I would like to know what Hilary thinks about this – another player here that is important. The first player is the waste producer, or the consumer – the one who is doing separate collection. But the second player in this chain is the collection service.

Once the collection crews and companies are somehow advised or bound to the fact that they have to guarantee the highest quality of the biowaste they collect, these people can then help enormously in sorting out critical spots in cities and neighbourhoods. And door-to-door, or curbside, collection helps with this because the collection crew has the ability to not empty a bin where incorrect bags have been used for source-separating organics.

HN: Yeah, I agree and that is definitely an opportunity in the United States. Some of the concerns are around the fact that we often have automated curbside collection, so the drivers aren’t even flipping the lids or able to monitor the material in the containers. But there is a best practice among all the material stream – the recycling, and composting – to leave messages or communicate to the customer that it is a priority to source-separate appropriately. So many haulers will give that feedback to their customers.

I’ve heard from composters that we’ve interviewed that [it’s good] when they have integration: as in, when the composters or sometimes the hauler have relationships with their consumers and can give them guidance on even which products to buy. But then there’s other communities where they’re accepting waste from many different haulers and they just don’t have the capacity to give that kind of feedback. So they’re dealing with higher contamination a lot of times. But that is definitely an opportunity to address all sorts of contamination that composters are dealing with.

CONFUSION In The Marketplace – EDUCATING Consumers

Q: Marco, you mention the consumer’s role in sorting the plastics, but this can be tricky when there is so much confusion over what’s compostable and what’s not. How can we ensure that the different types of plastics are easily identifiable for consumers as well?

MR: We have a lot of experience with that in Italy and in other European countries. A lot of advertising and information activities have to be done to be sure that consumers can distinguish correctly compostable plastics from non-compostable ones, and the existence of certification labels helps enormously with in that way.

The Italian Composting Association (and also the Italian law) strongly advise consumers to look for the certification label – one of the three main ones existing in Europe – and make sure they are to be found on bioplastics and especially on shopping bags made of bioplastics. According to our experience and common understanding (also exchanging views with other European composting associations), these labels can help consumers enormously to identify the correct bags.

Q: Hilary, I presume there has also been problems in the US with people knowing what’s compostable and what’s not?

HN: Yes, there are definitely concerns. Although, the BPI logo is gaining recognition and was recently revised to include more specifics about what it means to be compostable, including some more caveats about checking with your local agency or waste management provider to determine whether they accept that material. It really is a regional issue right now and the best information is given to consumers by the local municipality or their local composter.

There’s still concerns and there’s still confusion, and one of the opportunities is that BPI has changed their logo and it’s been incorporated into the new printing of some of the products. And on one of the working groups on the US Composting Council recently helped to revise a labelling standard that many of the stakeholders who are manufacturers have all agreed to try and incorporate into their product distribution and labelling; so that includes things like labelling both the packaging and the product as clearly as possible with green or blue labelling and the word “compostable” – again reiterating that you should check with your local composting facility for further information about whether they accept them or not.

Q: To clarify for our audience, the BPI is the Biodegradable Products Institute, which is one of the entities in the US that regulates the use of the word compostable and maintains the best labelling program for compostable plastics in North America…

OPERATIONAL Impacts and Managing CONTAMINATION

…And Hilary, you’ve been working on a project in San Jose, developing a field testing protocol with the composters there, and you interviewed 15 different facilities who were testing these plastics. Can you share with us the other kinds of issues they had?

HN: The most common issue is just contamination in general. When we talk about compostable plastics, I think it’s important to address the fact that composters are being asked to accept a larger variety and more organic material; which is great because we’re diverting more of it from landfill, but in that case there’s still a need to continue education and address contamination issues with conventional plastic film and especially glass that effects the end product.

Q: So again it seems that contamination from other plastics (and glass too) are the main issues in the US. Marco, is this the same for composters in Europe, and how are we dealing with it?

MR: Yes, it is. Again it depends very much on where they receive the waste from. Obviously the most risky thing is to receive non-compostable plastics and to get them into a composting plant – especially because we have areas where composting plants do not have any sorting devices before mixing the biowaste together, because they expect the receive a very clean biowaste. So in that case they might be in trouble.

That’s why most composting associations in Europe regularly do sorting analysis on the biowaste and quality checks on the compost, so that they have an overview of what’s going on. CIC, the Italian Composting Association, runs about five to six hundred sorting analysis every year, and about two hundred and fifty to about three hundred compost analysis every year on the different composting plants located in Italy. So we know exactly what’s going around, and actually we can trace the type of different bags which are delivered into a single composting plant. We know if they are compostable, if they are shopping bags, and if they’ve been delivered by the municipality or not. So it’s a very robust monitoring and serving scheme that’s been running since 2004 or 2006.

Q: And for composters who want to understand the possible operational costs of accepting compostable plastics: in general, do composting sites need to alter their process or management practices in order to accommodate these plastics in any drastic way?

MR: If we’re talking about bags – no. If we’re talking about more sophisticated compostable plastic items like rigid packaging, it might be necessary to shred beforehand. Again, here it depends very much on what kind of composting plant we’re dealing with. Many composting sites in Italy which accept food waste on one line and garden waste on the other one, do not shred the food waste; they just mix it up with the garden waste.

If we move to the UK or other experiences where there is a mixed collection of food and garden waste, this material i normally shredded as a standard procedure. So the bags are opened and also rigid packaging is likely to be shredded already. So this answer is very plant-specific. Obviously keep in mind that, at least in our experience, composting plants have been designed to treat biowaste, so everything that is different – like packaging – the plant must adapt to this condition.

Q: Hilary, perhaps you have something to add here, because I’m sure in the US you’ve had more experience with rigid plastics like service wear and so on?

HN: We do have some experience with that, because I think we mentioned earlier that there’s fewer compostable plastic shopping bags, but also, to Marco’s point, it’s a very regional or composter based decision. There are a couple situations I can point out: for example, one of the composters I work with is accepting mixed solid waste. They sort a preliminary on the front-end for some recyclable and hazardous material, and then compost the process for twelve to fourteen weeks, and sort on the back-end. They remove any residuals and landfill it, and then sort to produce a compost product. That means they’re not concerned about separating rigid compostable plastics from non-rigid compostable plastics, because they’re composting everything –

MR: Sorry Hilary, but in that case, if I understood correctly, we’re talking about accepting mixed municipal solid waste, and at least in Europe this wouldn’t be allowed to be called compost when it comes out, since we need to produce compost starting from source-separated organics – separated at source at the household or restaurant, at the canteen…

HN: Right. So then another example of compost facilities that are accepting source-separated organics – and some other compostable plastics that meet BPI standards and are labelled for compostability – they are most able to identify compostable plastic bags that are green and labelled with BPI, and also some of the PLA cups with the green stripe, per the USCC labelling guidelines. The rigid plastics are sometimes harder to label or code, so they will often do their best to sort those out in the field when they accept them, and then at the end they screen them, and some of the overs are often reintroduced – as Marco mentioned there’s a similar process in Italy and the rest of Europe.

Some facilities have too much on an issue with contamination, so that the conventional plastics will remain in the overs, in which case they’ll have to landfill that material and the compostable plastics that might remaining – especially the rigids and cutlery and things like that. Those won’t be given the chance to further decompose. So that’s one of the opportunities further with the labelling and getting control over the marketplace for these products so that they can be more consistently composted and identified at the composting facility.

A VISION For the FUTURE

Q: Finally: is there anything you would like to see change or to see happen with compostable plastics or how they’re regulated? Any pressing issues that have your attention?

MR: I personally would like to ban the use of the word biodegradable for the kinds of items that are not compostable. We probably need a clear definition, at least continent-wide (world-wide would be too much). But it’s the question where we started from: what does biodegradable mean? So it sometimes creates so much green-washing that the composting sector – which is the backbone of the recycling scheme in many countries, since it represents the largest amount of municipal solid waste. So somehow there must be more stringent requests on what items can all themselves biodegradable. Otherwise confusion will still be quite strong for consumers.

HN: I would say “Amen” and that even in California where we have those labelling standards, it’s very difficult to enforce. So we need more capacity on a national level, which I think is more appropriate, rather than state-wide, to educate consumers around the difference between biodegradable and compostable, and enforce legislation to basically level the marketplace and make it possible for compostable plastics to be given the same opportunity and so that some of the green-washing can’t further contaminate our composting process and confuse people.